


ready to start

by bluedesert



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pining, Spiderman!Mark, The power of friendship, mild violence, most importantly:, some weed, the dreamies save nyc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:36:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 38,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23914675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluedesert/pseuds/bluedesert
Summary: It's not that Donghyuck wants his friends to become a rag tag group of kids trying to save the city, it's just that-- well, no, that's literally it. He never asked for this, but it's happening anyway. The best he can do is try to stop Mark Lee from swinging straight through a window with his dumb spider web.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 69
Kudos: 241





	1. eerie in the blue glow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chenle does something he shouldn't. The gang goes to a party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so!!! this is my first NCT fic. i'm super excited about it! and i'm posting on the day of the dream comeback which totally blew my mind 
> 
> please enjoy!!

“Okay nice! We’re here,” Mark says and claps his hands a little, like he’s applauding their ability to do the bare minimum and get on a train from Brooklyn to Manhattan. 

“It’s literally your fault we’re late,” Donghyuck retorts as they speed walk into the lobby of an all-glass office building. They have to break apart as a group of people in suits comes at them, so Donghyuck can only imagine the unimpressed look Mark is sending his way. If Mark had literally just listened to him-- or say, Google Maps-- they would’ve been on time. But whatever. 

They make it into a crowded auditorium filled with all kinds of journalists, tech enthusiasts, and academics. Irene, assistant to the CEO of Zhong Enterprises, has already started the presentation.

“ZHE is one of the first biotech companies to partner with supers, and our ability to keep the people who keep _us_ safe, as safe as possible will always be one of our top priorities,” she says, as a picture of Red Cat and Yellow Witch comes up behind her. Donghyuck resists the urge to roll his eyes at the ridiculous spandex uniforms they have on. What’s the point of a piece of clothing being bulletproof if it's that ugly? 

“But, we are targeting a different demographic with this release. This,” a black box with all kinds of dials and blue lights is brought out onstage, “is our newest 3D printer, ZHPrint 3000. The range of printable prototypes includes enhanced sensory prosthetics and supplementary muscoskelatory machinery.” A murmur washes over the crowd as people rush to take photos of the new technology. Donghyuck is about to pull out his phone when his Mark Detector, which is always on, rings the alarm. He looks to the side and finds Mark’s gaze straying from the front stage. He follows his line of sight-- a kid in an oversized black hoodie slips out of a nearby exit. Just as the door is about to close, Donghyuck catches a glimpse of his face. It’s one he recognizes.

“That’s Chenle Zhong,” he hisses.

“For real?” Mark asks.

“Follow him!” he says, pushing at Mark’s shoulder. It takes Mark a second to catch on, but Donghyuck knows he’ll come to the same conclusion. Whatever Irene is showing now will be widely available on the internet tomorrow. Getting to interview the heir to ZHE is not an opportunity they can miss out on. Mark nods and they slip through the crowd. Nobody really notices, everyone too focused on Irene’s demo on stage to pay attention to two college kids in beat up jean jackets creeping away.

They find Chenle leaning against the wall of an empty hallway, looking at his phone. “Do you think he’ll talk to us? Shit, we didn’t even prepare any questions,” Mark whisper-shouts. Donghyuck ignores him and walks up to Chenle, wearing his best I-Am-Cute-and-Loveable smile. Chenle stuffs his phone into his hoodie pocket and frowns at them.

“Can I help you?” he asks.

“Hi! I’m Donghyuck, this is Mark,” Donghyuck says, “We’re student journalists. We represent our university’s newspaper, maybe you’ve heard of it. It’s called BKU News and--”

“Wait, you go to BKU?” Chenle interrupts.

“Yeah we do. Why?”

“Oh my god, do you know Jaemin Na?” Chenle asks. Donghyuck and Mark simultaneously groan and roll their eyes.

“He’s one of our best friends,” Mark says.

“He’s an idiot,” Donghyuck adds on.

“No way! I went to high school with him,” says Chenle, “is he still driving that stupid car?”

“Yes. He had that piece of shit in high school? I’ve known him for two years and he still hasn’t let me drive it,” Donghyuck complains. He elects not to mention that he doesn’t have a driver's license. Jaemin and his car are kind of celebrities on campus. Jaemin, for being friendly, hot, and a filthy rich son-of-a-business conglomerate. His car, for being a bright pink minivan that matches his hair. So many people would leave him love notes on its windshields that he had to leave it in the parking lot of his off campus apartment. It makes sense that Chenle and him would have gone to the same bougie high school.

“I’ve known him for years and he’s never let me drive it,” Chenle says.

Donghyuck decides not to point out that Chenle hardly looks old enough to drive.

“Did he have pink hair in high school too?” Mark asks.

“He dyed in senior year,” Chenle says.

Mark snaps his fingers in like an ‘aha!’ way. “We’ve always wondered what came first, the car or the hair. He tells us he was born with the hair. I guess it was the car though!” 

They all kind of stand there and grin at each other for a moment, basking in their memories of Jaemin Na and his pink hair. 

“You guys seems pretty chill,” Chenle says, gaze changing, “wanna see something cool? I shouldn’t do this, but I’m bored as hell. You have to promise to keep it a secret, though.”

Donghyuck nods eagerly. Anything that Chenle Zhong deems cool must be genuinely incredible. He’s not disappointed. Chenle leads them down the hallway, turns a corner and stops at double doors guarded by big guys in suits. Donghyuck gazes into their dark sunglasses and smiles. They don’t smile back. Instead, they nod at Chenle and swing the doors open.

“Dude,” Mark breathes, “no way.”

Chenle has led them into what must be some sort of lab. The lights are off and everything looks eerie in the blue glow of computer screens. Donghyuck can make out lines and lines of code, complicated looking graphs, 2D models of 3D-printed counterparts. 3D prototypes are placed on black stands throughout the room. He sees a hovering wheelchair, moving eyeballs, a prosthetic hand that looks like it’s playing single-person rock paper scissors. 

They walk slowly into the room. Chenle reaches over and takes out the prosthetic hand. He initiates what looks like a complicated handshake. The hand follows along perfectly.

“Try this stuff out,” he says, “but remember, if any information about what you see in this room leaks to the public, I’ll press all kinds of charges against you. You’ll be in jail before you can spell Z-H-E.”

Donghyuck bites back a retort about the failings of the criminal justice system and acquiesces instead. Being threatened to be thrown in jail is so worth it, he thinks, as he shakes hands with the prosthetic Chenle passes him. He starts to wander through the room, picking up whatever catches his eye. He tries on a glove that turns his entire hand numb. He puts on a clear black ring that suddenly expands into a mass of metallic bones, a mirror image of what must be his skeleton underneath. A pair of glasses records everything he sees, then plays it back to him on the inside of the lenses. It’s quiet except for their soft exclamations of surprise, Chenle’s occasional clarification, and the whirling of computers surrounding them.

“ZHE printers really made all of this?” Mark’s voice echoes from the other side of the room.

“Yep,” Chenle says from the opposite direction, playing with a butterfly whose wings glitter with little pinpricks of red light.

Suddenly, loud cheers bleed through the quiet walls of the laboratory. The presentation must have finished. 

“We have to leave,” Chenle says, dropping the butterfly back in its place hurriedly, “Irene is gonna kill me if she finds out I left.”

Donghyuck runs up to Chenle, careful to zigzag around the pieces of technology. He hears Mark’s footsteps follow them from farther behind as they speed towards the double doors. Chenle keeps up a steady stream of curses by his side.

“Will you get in trou-- OW, what the fuck?” Mark says, but Donghyuck doesn’t have time to stop and check on him before Chenle is pushing him out of the room. He stumbles through the doors. Mark emerges a few seconds later, clutching the back of his neck. 

“All good?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” Mark says, “I thought I felt--” the other doors into the hallway swing open, and people come flooding in-- “nevermind.” Everyone around them is leaving the demo site, talking animatedly, looking at the photos on their cameras.

Chenle is already walking away, towards the auditorium. “It was nice meeting you guys. Hope you had fun, tell Jaemin to let me drive his car!”

“Thank you,” Mark yells after his retreating form. 

Donghyuck looks at Mark, who looks back at him. He feels just as dazed as Mark appears. He can still hear the hum of busy computers in the back of his mind. Mark rubs his neck again, breaking eye contact.

“Well,” Mark says, “I guess we’re gonna have to look up the demo online to have something to write about in our article.” 

“Yeah,” Donghyuck says. The fluorescent hallway lights make Mark look paler, a weird sort of sheen covering his skin, so he grabs Mark’s hand and they walk towards the exit, into the sun. 

*******

So the thing is, when Chenle made them promise to keep what happened secret, he was unwittingly allowing them to tell Jaemin, Renjun, and Jeno. Whatever happens to Donghyuck happens to those three as well. Sorry, Donghyuck doesn’t make the rules. That’s why, after taking a quick stop at home to drop off his stuff and change, Donghyuck finds himself at Mark and Jeno’s apartment regaling them with the tales of ZHE’s unreleased tech. 

They’re at Mark and Jeno’s pregaming for a party near campus. They’d usually go to Jaemin’s swanky apartment, but its farther from the party and no one wants to take the subway while drunk (too many bad memories). So instead, they’re crowded in Jeno and Mark’s tiny closet/apartment. They pull out the table from against the wall to allow for extra seating and Mark has the aux, playing some rap music from his portable speaker. Donghyuck picked up some Lambrusco on the way-- the best pregame wine because it feels classy but gets you drunk. Shitty vodka is _so_ freshman year.

When he starts his story, he’s worried for a second that Mark will stop him, because he’s got a code of honor like that. But Mark just chimes in additional details and Donghyuck relaxes into a detailed account. Anyway, Jaemin could probably find out all of this stuff from Chenle if he asked, Jeno can keep a secret better than any of them because he’s just that chill of a guy, and Renjun is their resident badass hacker and tech geek. Donghyuck could never deny him this info-- not after Renjun showed him how to buy stuff from the dark web and he got his hands on Michal Jackson's original demos.

Jaemin laughs until he’s got tears in his eyes when they mention that Chenle’s trust in them stemmed completely from their shared friendship/complaints. It might have to do with the fact that Jaemin’s been hitting his weed pen all night, but a definite look of fondness crosses over his face when he says, “That kid is so adorable. And super chaotic too. I’m honestly not even surprised.” 

At around ten thirty Donghyuck pulls out his makeup. If they don’t head out soon they’ll get way too lazy to leave for the party and stay in, finishing the bottle of wine and being generally loud until they literally can’t keep their eyes open anymore. He promised Jaehyun he’d show tonight. So he’s quick-- a dab of gloss, a brush of highlighter. While blending in his eyeshadow he tries to convince Jaemin to let him do his makeup. Mark sits at his side, watching him attentively.

“Mark, you want me to do yours too?” he asks. Mark’s gaze on his profile turns him a bit shaky, and he almost stabs himself in the eyeball with his mascara brush. A quick glance at Mark through the mirror confirms that Mark missed the slip up. Mark just sends him a distracted shake of his head.

“It’s a pretty color. Oh, uh, the gold I mean-- I mean, the color of your, like, gloss is nice too of course-- sorry, nevermind,” Mark stumbles out, “I like the sparkles.”

Donghyuck frowns at him through the mirror despite the warm, pleased feeling spreading through his chest. He can’t tell what Mark is trying to compliment, since there’s a lot of glitter on his face right now. But with Mark, he’ll always take whatever he can get.

“Thanks? Just tell me if you want me to do yours, you know I’m always down.” 

Mark shakes his head again quickly. Jaemin jumps at the chance though, and sits still long enough until his face sparkles with silvery glitter. Donghyuck dumps some in his hair, just for fun, and Jaemin chases him out of the apartment as revenge, screaming about sparkly dandruff. 

“It’s okay Jaemin, just wash it out in the shower. It might clog your shower drain though, whoops!” Donghyuck says, laughing and breathless, once Jaemin catches up to him. The others trickle out behind them, trying and failing to be quiet. A pleasant buzz has settled under Donghyuck’s skin, one that thrums happily as they make their way up the stairs to Yukhei’s apartment. It looks different-- Yukhei really went all out. The lights flash red, purple, blue. A big stereo system plays music that seems to shake the walls. The neighbors will definitely be complaining tonight.

Donghyuck spots Johnny first, and hurries to drape himself over him in hello. Johnny gives him a grin and pats his head softly.

“How’s it going, Hyuck?” Johnny asks. 

“Good! What are you drinking?” Donghyuck peers into Johnny mug suspiciously. Johnny offers him a sip. It’s some sort of coffee with a strong and unmistakable taste of alcohol underneath.

“Irish coffee? Gross.” He wrinkles his nose at the bitter taste. 

“You just have bad taste,” Johnny says genially.

Johnny works with them on the school newspaper, so he knows about their plans at the ZHE demo earlier today. When he asks how it went, Donghyuck gives a carefully breezy answer. Mark thankfully comes up to them at that moment, and Donghyuck is saved from having to give more details as Johnny and Mark engage in some complicated bro-handshake.

“What are you working on right now?” Donghyuck asks Johnny. He brightens and talks about his article on the school’s efforts to increase composting. Donghyuck places himself under Mark’s arm while listening to Johnny. He feels himself relax into the conversation, the atmosphere, the warm feeling of Mark’s hand on his shoulder. His hand feels hotter than usual actually, but that could be because Donghyuck is both hyper aware of the contact like always, and because the party is generally pretty stuffy with the heat of human bodies.

“By the way, did you guys read Taeil’s article on super testing and training centers? It was great,” Johnny says. Donghyuck’s stomach swoops and Mark’s hand squeezes his shoulder in comfort. He’d avoided reading that article for a reason. He tries to steer the conversation away from his least favorite topic of all time, but it’s got Johnny going. “There’s definitely stuff that goes on there we don’t know about. It’s like my dream to be able to interview Red Cat and Yellow Witch about fighting for super rights. I mean, it’s about time we got rid of those centers.”

 _Yeah nope_ , Donghyuck thinks. “Hold on, gotta bounce,” he says, aiming for nonchalance. He dips out of the conversation, ignoring the worried look that Mark sends his way. Johnny will probably think he’s being kind of rude, but he also doesn’t know how sensitive of a topic supers are to him, so. There’s nothing he can do but walk away. Luckily, he runs into Jaehyun pretty quickly and lets out a shout of joy, thoughts cleared momentarily.

Jaehyun pats his cheeks affectionately and slips an arm around Donghyuck’s shoulders as they flit from group to group. Donghyuck basks in Jaehyun’s quietly cheerful presence. They actually met at a party about a year ago, and had hooked up for a while before Donghyuck discovered how great Jaehyun really is and adopted him as an older brother type figure instead. Of course, the whole ‘stupid crush on his best friend’ thing factored into that decision as well, but Donghyuck prefers not to think about that.

“You’re my favorite,” Donghyuck says, sitting on the kitchen counter and swinging his legs while Jaehyun makes him a drink. The song changes to one he knows well, and he glances at the speakers. It’s Mark, leaning over the computer controlling the music with Yukhei. The blue lights make his hair look even deeper black than it is, and Donghyuck lets himself admire his profile. Just for a moment. The black shirt he has on looks good too. Mark just looks good in general, albeit a little sweaty, skin shining in the lights. He watches Mark rub a hand over his face, then blink a few times in rapid succession.

Suddenly, Mark looks up and makes eye contact with him. Donghyuck ignores his brain’s warnings of _abort! abort!_ and lifts his cup up in acknowledgment. Mark frowns at him, but before Donghyuck can overanalyze Mark’s expression, Jaehyun calls his attention over with a sweet and cold drink in hand. They make their way over to Jaemin, who’s sharing dessert recipes with Yeri.

It’s when he ambles back into the kitchen to find some water that he encounters Mark again. He fills up his plastic cup in the sink and takes a long sip. But when he puts the cup back down on the counter, it tips a little and begins to fall. Donghyuck watches in almost slow motion, reflexes not fast enough to catch the cup. A familiar arm reaches out and grabs it out of the air. It’s Mark’s hand, stopping the cup from falling. But he must have caught the cup too tightly, because suddenly they’re both covered in water as the plastic crushes in his hand.

“Woah, the fuck, dude?” Donghyuck says, taking the crushed plastic cup in his hand. A quick glance at Mark’s expression sets off alarms in the back of his head. He takes back the crushed cup and discards it. 

“Let’s go clean up.” He grabs Mark’s hand, which feels hot and clammy. 

Luckily, they’re able to kick people out of the bathroom. They try to wring some of the water out of their shirts. Donghyuck feels a little gross and sticky, but Mark looks even worse than he feels. He sits down heavily on the side of the bathtub. 

“Are you okay?” Donghyuck says.

Marks runs a hand through his hair and blinks away some of the haziness in his eyes. “Yeah, just have a headache.”

Donghyuck begins searching the cabinet for an aspirin. He finds a bottle, as well as a hair dryer. He hands the bottle and a filled glass of water over to Mark, and tries to blow dry his shirt. He looks at himself in the mirror-- smudged mascara, messy hair, shirt held away from his body awkwardly. Music and chatter fall steadily through the closed door, but sounds distorted. He offers Mark the blow dryer, who waves his hand away. Instead he reaches over and splashes some water on his face.

“Hey, we should probably talk about what happened before,” Mark says, voice muffled by the towel he uses to wipe the water off his face. 

“What do you mean?” Donghyuck says.

Mark looks at him with his token, _take this seriously Hyuck,_ expression. “I mean what happened with Johnny. I think he was kinda confused by how you just left like that.”

“Yeah, well. You know I don’t like when people bring up that topic.” 

“I know you don’t and that’s valid,” Mark sighs, “just make sure you talk to him at some point tonight. I think he was kind of surprised.” He hesitates for a moment. Donghyuck already doesn’t like what he’s about to say. “I know you don’t like talking about supers, but it’s a constant conversation, in our world especially. I just think you need to think about how you handle it in the future. A little more, like, professional”

“Professional! I can totally be professional. You know how serious I am about journalism and--” 

“I’m not questioning your commitment at all,” Mark rushes out, “I’m just saying you can’t run away from every conversation about supers. It’ll bite you in the ass one day, and I don’t want that to happen to you.”

He knows, logically, that Mark is his best friend and only means the best. But all he hears is Mark’s insensitivity to the topic. All he sees is the flash of annoyance on Mark’s face. Of all people, Mark should be the one who understands why he reacted the way he did.

“Look, I’m sorry if I didn’t want to start thinking about my parents in the middle of a party--” he starts hotly. Mark rushes to defend himself again.

“I’m not talking about tonight specifically. And I’m not talking about your parents either. Don’t put words in my mouth--”

“Then why are you even bringing this up right now? I’m literally just trying to have a good time, and you’re lecturing me, again--”

“I don’t _lecture_ you!”

Their voices are raised by now. Donghyuck can’t quite think through the growing haze of frustration, exacerbated by the alcohol in his veins and the odd look on Mark’s face. He looks sweaty, an pinched expression in his eyes. Donghyuck has had enough arguments with Mark to know that it doesn’t help either of them to fight when they’re like this. They’ll both say things they regret. 

He cuts himself off and takes a deep breath. He tries to work himself down from the heat of the moment. Everything Mark does to him happens in extremes-- when Mark compliments him he feels like his chest explodes with warmth. And when he’s mad, it’s so hard to stop himself from saying something mean. It surprises him, sometimes, what can come out of his own mouth. Next to him, Mark sags against the wall, looking exhausted. They’re quiet for a moment. 

“I think I should go home. I’m not feeling so good,” Mark mumbles, leaning down to put the Advil bottle back in the cabinet.

“I’ll come with you,” Donghyuck says immediately.

The cabinet door closes with a sharp _bang_. Mark straightens up, runs a hand through his hair. Donghyuck doesn’t miss the way his fingers tremble. “It’s fine, you should stay. I don’t want to cut your night short.” 

“I won’t let you go home by yourself. You look like you may be coming down with something,” he pulls out his phone, “I’ll call us an Uber.”

“You’re right, I probably just caught a cold or something. I’ll just go home and straight to bed.” Mark says. Donghyuck doesn’t say anything, fingers hovering above his phone screen.

“Hyuck, just listen to me.” 

So Mark pulls out his phone and orders a car for himself. He opens the bathroom door, and the sound of the party immediately comes tumbling in, drowning out their hesitant silence. Donghyuck follows him to the door. They pass by Jaemin and Renjun, who are sitting on the couch with a group passing around a blunt. Mark says a quick goodbye, and they too offer to go home with him, but he waves them away like he had done with Donghyuck. 

Donghyuck feels emotional whiplash as he trails Mark downstairs to wait for the car. He’d been so annoyed, but now all he feels is worry. A certain level of iciness makes sense after the way they’d raised their voices at each other, and sometimes Mark likes his space, a frequent cause of conflict between them. But he doesn’t want Mark to run away from him right now when he seems so strangely shaky. 

“Text me when you get home,” Donghyuck says, feeling lost as Mark gives him a weak smile and gets into the back of the car.

He can’t help but feel like he’s doing something wrong, like he should be in the backseat with Mark, holding his hand and offering him water. He tries to push that feeling of trepidation away as he watches the car turn the corner and out of sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come be my friend!!!! find me on on twitter: [here](https://twitter.com/_bluedesert_)  
> comments, questions, concerns are all welcome <333


	2. words fall instead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeno tells a lie. Jaemin drives his car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i made a playlist for this fic! [check it out](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4aUdPUZQX6IeEvTWj0ckCP?si=bkgMHQenSfqbQJUqWSsTAg)  
> okay! chapter 2 lets go!!

“Jeno Lee, if you ordered pepperoni pizza I’m banning you from this apartment,” Jaemin says, gaze locked on the screen in front of him where he’s racing furiously against Renjun in a game of Mario Kart. 

Donghyuck dodges the pillow Jeno sends flying. “Hey!” Jaemin says, as Renjun’s character overtakes his. Donghyuck ignores the ensuing bickering in favor of watching a video of the ZHE demo on Youtube, hoping to get a start on the article soon. 

Sundays are often spent like this. They lay around Jaemin’s living room, frantically finishing homework, taking breaks to play video games, and arguing over pizza toppings. It’s a little useless since they usually just order cheese in the end. But Jeno stands by pepperoni every week, much to Jaemin’s dismay. 

“Guys, I’m thinking of going vegetarian,” Renjun says after successfully placing first in his race. Donghyuck makes a vaguely encouraging sound as he navigates away from the Youtube video to check Facebook. The only people he cares about that use Facebook are Jaehyun and his Grandma. Jaehyun always tags him in stupid memes. His Grandma tags him in everything from cooking videos to gardening pages (he owns exactly one succulent). Today, his Grandma has tagged him in some article about increasing crime rates in the city. She lives in the suburban part of Queens both he and Mark had grown up in. If she had it her way, he would still be living with her so she could feed him five times a day. That’s what this article probably is for: to further her agenda of getting Donghyuck back home. 

But a skim through the article shows that there does seem to be something statistically significant going on. More break ins, more muggings. Which is weird, because its October. Crime is relatively seasonal, and increases during the summer months. He makes a mental note to call his Grandma that night to ease her worries.

He pushes away his computer and looks up to find the others about to start a new game. “I’ll join in this round,” he says, and is handed a controller in response. All the controllers are being used, except for the purple one that Mark likes to use. 

“Has Mark texted you guys?” he asks as the game starts up. He starts off at second place, Jeno ahead of him. Mark had only sent him a quick _im home_ on Friday night after the party. Except for a brief message to their group chat telling them he’d gone home to his parents for the weekend, he’d gone basically MIA. Donghyuck had sent him a few stupid Snapchats complaining about homework that hadn’t even been opened. 

Radio silence is fine. It's _fine_. After a particularly bad fight sophomore year of high school, they’d gone like a month without any texts, FaceTimes, or Snapchats. Donghyuck can handle a little cold shoulder. It doesn’t mean he can’t worry though.

“He probably just got tired of his shitty cooking earlier than usual,” Jaemin says as his car overtakes Donghyuck’s. Jeno is still ahead of both of them, comfortably first. 

“I don’t know. You guys didn’t see him on Friday at the party. He seemed kinda out of it,” Donghyuck says. 

“Hyuck, no offense, but I think you’re just projecting. He was probably just a little too drunk or something and felt sick. Don’t let your, y’know, Mark thing cloud your judgement,” Renjun says. Donghyuck flushes at the mention of his “Mark thing” which is the elephant in literally every room he enters but rarely addressed. 

It’s just how he does friendships, he thinks defensively. It’s how they work-- real friends are just a little bit obsessed with each other. Mark is his best friend of seven years, it makes sense he’d be more attached to him than anyone else. And maybe those feelings delved into crush territory a few months ago, but he’s sure they’ll go away soon. Soon, before Mark notices, because if Mark has to reject him he’s definitely dropping out of college and leaving the country. 

The others have moved on from the conversation while Donghyuck internally debated how much plane tickets to Hawaii cost. But he won’t let this go. Sure, he has a stupid crush that he hates with his entire being. But he also knows Mark better than anyone else, and he can tell when something is up. 

“I really think something was wrong though,” he insists. 

Jaemin sighs as the game ends and turns off the TV. “If something is wrong, he probably wants to think it through on his own first. You know how he is,” he stretches slowly like a lazy cat, “anyway, let's get back to work. I wanna finish my paper before the pizza comes.” 

*******

On Monday, Jeno confirms that Mark is back in their shared apartment. That, on top of the fact that Donghyuck is relatively busy for a few days takes his mind off of what happened on Friday. He spends a lot of time working on some readings for class. Monday night, he makes Jaehyun and Johnny take him out for dinner. Johnny is his usual friendly self. Donghyuck wants to send Mark a petty _I told you so_ text, but convinces himself they’ve outgrown that. 

It’s only until Wednesday that he lets himself worry about the continued radio silence. The worry really starts when Mark doesn’t show up to their newspaper meeting that night. It’s weird because its Mark, who is the only college student Donghyuck knows who has never skipped a lecture or club meeting. (What a loser.)

“Where’s your hip attachment?” Johnny teases. Donghyuck makes something up about the flu, and shoots Mark a quick _where r u??_ before Wendy starts off the meeting. He tells the group that their ZHE article is on the way. Wendy talks about the possibility of getting an interview with Yellow Witch as a follow up to their previous article about super testing and training centers. Donghyuck doesn’t raise his hand when asked for volunteers for the project. Mark still hasn’t texted him back by the time the meeting ends, so he switches tactics. 

**big bad sad bois**

Donghyuck [6:17]

_anyone free for dinner ??? im on campus_

Renjun [6:19]

_trying to debug my code rn and its making me wanna die_

Renjun [6:19]

_just gonna make some ramen at home or smth_

Jaemin [6:21]

_same hw is killing me :(((((((((_

Jeno [6:25]

_have a late class today sorry hyuck_

Donghyuck frowns at Jeno’s text. He knows for a fact that Jeno doesn’t have anything going on Wednesday nights. At the beginning of the semester they’d shared their google calendars with each other. Feeling only a little bit creepy, he checks Jeno’s Snapchat location. He’s at the law school, which isn’t surprising per se, because Jeno is doing pre-law. He decides to visit him, maybe ask about Mark, and bother him into getting food. 

He’d only been to the law building once, when Jeno had dragged him there to study over finals week last semester. There’s a bunch of people dressed in blazers and button ups, which makes him feel a little out of place with his leather jacket and jewelry. Luckily he finds Jeno quickly, in the corner of a quiet study lounge, and sneaks up behind him.

“Why are you looking at cases about supers? ” he asks, reading over Jeno’s shoulder. 

Jeno jumps a little in his chair and spins around. Donghyuck just gives him a sweet smile and sinks down into the chair next to him.

“Dude! You scared me!”

“Are you sure you don’t want food?” he asks.

“Can’t,” Jeno says, “promised Mark I’d eat with him. I’m just doing some, uh, research first.”

“Research for what?” Donghyuck asks, eyes narrowed. 

“For class?” Jeno responds, like his answer is a question. Donghyuck elects not to bring up the fact that Jeno is taking Environmental Law this semester. They both know he knows that.

“And how is Mark? I’d love to catch up with the two of you. Over food,” Donghyuck says pointedly. 

“Sorry it's-- it’s just a roomie dinner tonight,” Jeno says, staring hard at his papers. Donghyuck can’t help but feel surprised. The obvious lie and rejection is not at all what he expected. His plan is not going the way he wanted it to go. 

“Are you okay?” Donghyuck asks, voice dropping in seriousness. 

“Yeah, of course. Just, you know, busy,” he gestures at the books in front of him, “sorry, Hyuck.”

One friend acting strangely is bad enough. Two is where he draws the line. Jeno’s usual affable self isn’t in the chair Jeno is currently sitting in. Donghyuck briefly considers whining until Jeno either gives in or they’re both kicked out of the study lounge. But he knows Jeno, and if he’s hiding something on behalf of Mark, Donghyuck won’t get a single thing out of him. 

“Fine. It’s fine. I don’t get what's going on right now,” he starts coldly, then tries to soften his gaze, “but, well, you know you can tell me if you need anything.”

“Thanks Hyuck. I know,” Jeno says quietly.

Donghyuck knows when to strategically exit a situation, so he leaves the law building quickly. But he also knows when to strategically advance. That’s why he heads directly to Mark and Jeno’s apartment. No one answers when he knocks, which isn’t a surprise, so he uses the extra key Mark had given him when he first moved in. He’s just stopping by to check on Mark, if he’s there, he reasons with himself, as he turns the key and enters the dark apartment.

There’s a small strip of light leaking through Mark’s door. He tries to think of something clever to say as he enters, but the words are replaced by the absolute shock he gets when he looks at Mark’s face. 

“Mark! What _happened_ to you?” The left side of Mark’s face is covered in bruises. They look ugly, to be honest, purple, green, and yellow.

Mark rips off his headphones, and quickly closes his computer. “Hyuck? What are you doing here?”

“Uh, I think I should be asking the questions here. Are you okay? How did this even happen?” Donghyuck says, sitting down next to Mark on his bed. 

“I fell off the side of a building,” Mark says blandly.

“Be serious here! Let me go get the first aid kit, there’s gotta be something that’ll help.” Donghyuck rushes out of Mark’s bedroom into the living room. They’ve got a first aid kit there, that he’s pretty sure Mark’s parents gave him freshman year. He’s only previously used for the occasional hangover Advil. He looks through it, trying to find something to help the bruising.

“There’s nothing here. Let me get you some ice,” he says, discarding the first aid kid. 

“Hyuck, it’s fine. Just leave it.” Mark leans tiredly against his bedroom door frame, hands in his pockets.

Donghyuck ignores Mark, and moves to the freezer. They don’t have any ice. Of course they don’t. He glares at the sad, empty freezer, which only has some frozen pizzas and a half eaten pint of ice cream. Maybe he can wrap the ice cream container in a towel and use that on Mark’s face? “I just don’t understand what happened. Like did you get into a fight? Did you fall down a flight of stairs?” he says as he rummages through the freezer.

“I-I can’t explain it,” Mark says from behind him, “but I can show you.” Suddenly, something white and thread-like flashes into the freezer. It sticks to the tub of ice cream, and pulls away.

Donghyuck follows the trajectory of the ice cream as it swings away from him and right into Mark’s outstretched hands.

“What the _fuck_ was that?” Donghyuck screeches. He immediately regrets the reaction. Mark’s face crumbles. He drops the tub and sinks to his knees, hands covering his face.

“I know. I know. It happened on Friday and I don’t-- I don’t really know how,” he says behind his palms. Donghyuck rushes to his side, and wraps an arm around Mark’s shoulders. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard Mark speak in this tone of voice. To be fair, he also hasn’t Mark spew weird sticky thread from his hands either.

Mark tells him the story. He can’t quite look Donghyuck in the eyes as he admits what had happened. At the ZHE labs he was playing with some sort of spider-like prototype when it suddenly climbed up to the back of his neck and bit him. And that night, he started feeling weird. 

“When I got home from the party, I felt itchy and hot all over. And my hands started sticking to everything. I even ruined my homework,” Mark explains, “it felt like I had downed 8 shots of coffee at once. I had to get outside. So I went up on the roof--”

He takes a deep breath, staring at his hands. “That’s when I figured out the spider web thing. The weekend was honestly a blur. Trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. Like, I no longer knew how my body worked you know. I guess I was-- I was kinda scared.”

Donghyuck listens quietly, rubbing soft circles on Mark’s back. He’s shocked, to be honest, not just about Mark’s story, but also the way Mark’s words tumble out of his mouth. Like now that he’s started, he can’t stop himself. Like he’s racing against something, rushing to get everything out as fast as possible.

Mark doesn’t cry, but his voice sounds thick and Donghyuck guesses its trying to block the tears in the back of his throat. But words fall instead of tears. “Hyuck, the truth is, I wanted to tell you earlier but I-- you know after our conversation at Yukhei’s party, I realized I was pretty dismissive of your feelings toward supers. I know how painful it was with your parents--”

“That won’t happen to you,” Donghyuck says fiercely, interrupting for the first time. “My parents were forced to go public with their powers. That’s why they had to leave. But no one knows about you.”

“What if somehow people find out? If I mess up, even for a second, it's off to one of those centers. Or, you know, into hiding.”

Donghyuck does know. Every public super has gone through the mysterious testing and training program, and works for either the police or the military, like Red Cat. Alternatively, they can choose to run away into the shadows, and go into hiding. Force the government to lose track of their identities. And lose so much more in the process. That's where his parents are now. Where exactly? He doesn’t know. All he knows is that where he is, they are not. 

“That won’t happen to you,” Donghyuck says again. He says it for the both of them. Because where there are hundreds of public supers, there are thousands and thousands of normal people with _something strange_. Strangers on the street with something to hide-- behind their eyes, between their fingers, on their backs. Those people, supers without the _hero_ part, who don’t fight on TV, in the name of something bigger, are fighting in their own way for a private existence. They’re used to maintaining control, and hiding away in broad daylight. Other people by now are very practiced in the art of looking away. 

“You won’t have to give anything up. You’ll do what you’ve always done. Go to class, do your homework perfectly. Hang out with me and the others. Drink too much and sleep too little. _Nothing_ is going to change. You’re not going anywhere,” Donghyuck says again. He repeats it silently to himself. Mark isn’t going to leave. He will keep Mark safe. He will give Mark what his parents lost. And he won't lose Mark like he lost his parents. 

Mark senses something in his voice, because he shifts to hug Donghyuck back. “Okay. Yeah. Okay. I just have to learn to control whatever this thing is, and I can have my old life back.”

“You’ve always been a quick learner anyway,” Donghyuck says into Mark’s shoulder. 

After that, they sit on the couch and eat half-melted ice cream while watching TV. Donghyuck feels exhausted. So he sinks into the couch and holds Mark's hand. It's a little sweaty, but Mark for once lets him keep their hands clasped together for three whole episodes of their show (a record, because Donghyuck keeps count of that kind of stuff). It’s no surprise when Mark’s head lolls to the side and his breathing evens out, asleep. Between Mark’s deep breaths, Donghyuck finds himself chanting in his head, like a mantra, _he’ll be okay. he won't leave. he’ll be okay. he won’t leave._

******* 

**big bad sad bois**

Jeno [11:27]

_Mandatory group meeting tonight @ 7. my place_

Donghyuck [11:37]

_be there or be □_

Jaemin [11:45]

_okay can’t wait!!!!! :D_

Renjun [11:51]

_ill be there but why? did anything happen?_

Jaemin [11:52]

_^^^^^ ????????_

*******

“Wow, now I understand why you left us on read when we asked what happened,” Renjun says. 

They’re on the roof of Mark and Jeno’s apartment building. No one is sure if they’re allowed to go up there, but no one has ever kicked them off so they’ve all agreed it's probably allowed. 

Covering the place in spider web as Mark shows Renjun and Jaemin his new super powers is probably considered vandalism or something, but they’ll clean it up after. Maybe. 

Donghyuck can’t help but feel a little hurt when he finds out that Jeno knew about what had happened to Mark before him. Would Mark have told him if he hadn’t showed up at his apartment last night? They tell each other everything, right? 

At least he understands Jeno’s weird behavior at the law school. Turns out, he had been searching for super cases where the super got their ability later in life. 

“It seems like there’s only cases of people being born with their powers. It’s not like you turn twenty one and gain the ability to drink and act all spider-y. Any similar cases were just from more subtle powers that the super hadn’t been aware they had,” Jeno explains.

Mark looks so disappointed that Jeno hastily adds, “that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. There’s just no documented case.”

After Mark tells (and subsequently shows, by request, many times) the others about his powers, the inevitable stunned silence that follows lasts only a few seconds. Renjun almost immediately starts clowning Mark (“you’d look really bad in a sparkly spandex uniform like Red Cat’s”) and Jaemin suffocates/hugs him for a minute straight. Donghyuck isn’t surprised by that either, honestly. Jaemin and Renjun have always been good at rolling with the punches. One time, Donghyuck had been cooking in Mark and Jeno’s apartment while the roommates had gone grocery shopping. There had been a little (big) incident with the frying pan and a fire. But by the time Mark and Jeno got back, the smoke and smell of burnt cloth had been cleared. 

Anyway. After figuring out that someone might see something suspicious on the roof of the very populated neighborhood, they come up with a plan to discover the extent of Mark’s powers.

“The more he knows about what he can do, the more comfortable he’ll feel,” Jeno says reasonably. 

“I wanna see if he can run out of web,” Renjun adds, a mischievous glint in his eye. 

“We can use Barbara!!!!!” Jaemin chirps with the energy of the five cups of coffee he’s probably had today. Barbara is the name of the infamous pink minivan, but he’s the only person who calls it that.

(“I think it’s weird that we gender our property like cars and boats,” is Renjun’s reasoning.

“Sure. But I also just think its a dumb car,” Donghyuck says.)

Jaemin, as part of his art history degree, had taken a class on New York architecture and done a research project on empty space in the city. That’s how he got to know a hidden pocket of Brooklyn, squeezed between bustling neighborhoods, that is filled with deserted warehouses. They’re not the nouveau-warehouses of techno raves or secret concert venues. But warehouses with yellow tape around them, deemed unsafe for the general public, with cracked windows and echoing walls. Too much work to be renovated, and therefore looked over by real estate moguls and big companies. 

“I’m not sure if you want to bring us there to help Mark, or to kill us when a roof caves in over our heads,” Renjun says.

“What? No!” Jaemin exclaims, “I’m saying that it’ll be totally safe for us to go and throw Mark around for a bit. No one goes there.”

“Safe seems like a stretch,” Renjun says critically, “are you sure it's worth the risk?”

“I think we should. It’s way better than hanging out on the roof where any of the neighbors can see,” Donghyuck intervenes. Anything is worth helping Mark.

They all look to Mark for the final verdict. He has his arms crossed, looking at the ground like he does when he’s thinking through something. “Okay,” he says to Jaemin, “let’s do it.”

The wide grin Jaemin sends them is almost scary. His driving is even scarier. Getting into Jaemin’s car means putting your life in his less than capable hands. He switches quickly between getting impatient and trying to cut corners and running red lights, to becoming easily distracted by the chaos of his passengers and ignoring the roads. 

“Jaemin, _watch the road_!” Mark screeches from the backseat, stuck between a wrestling Renjun and Donghyuck, who can’t really hear him over the sound of their own arguing. Jeno just sits placidly in the front with Jaemin, offering semi-helpful directions and doing absolutely nothing to make Jaemin drive like a sane person, or try to calm down whatever goes on in the backseat. Donghyuck is pretty sure Jeno likes the thrill of dangerous driving habits, even if he’d never admit it.

Somehow they make it to the warehouse in one piece. Donghyuck is pretty sure buildings aren’t supposed to look weighted down by gravity like this. But, the neighborhood is just as deserted as Jaemin had promised. It's exactly what they need.

Immediately, the echoing and expansive interior is filled with sound. Mark plays music from his phone and starts trying to climb the walls. Jaemin watches over him and cheers him on. Jeno throws his beanie at Mark, who catches it and puts it on. Renjun starts picking through the rubble.

Donghyuck cheers as Mark shoots some web at a beam above, pulls it tight, then swings all the way to the opposite side. He crashes messily into the wall (which has everyone cracking up), but on a second try lands perfectly balanced. Donghyuck himself can almost taste the exhilaration of swinging from side to side, can almost hear the wind that rushes through Mark’s hair.

He shakes away the strange wish of wanting to be up there with Mark, flying through the air like he’s weightless. He picks up a bunch of rocks and starts pelting them towards Mark as he flies, forcing him to swerve, twist, and dodge. Not a single one hits him. Donghyuck cheers when Mark does a fancy flip in mid air, laugh-screams when he misses and almost hits the ground. The others, too, are loud. Renjun singing along with the music blasting from Mark’s android, Jaemin and Jeno screaming suggestion up at Mark 

“Throw the stones back at Donghyuck, you coward,” Jaemin jeers. 

“Give me back my beanie!” Jeno says.

“ _Dance-dance-dance ‘till you’re dead_ ,” Renjun sings amidst broken glass and debris.

In the midst of the cacophony of sound, Mark is silent. He drops straight off a beam and catches himself with his web like he’s bungee jumping, landing a few feet right above Donghyuck. They make eye contact, and Mark pauses long enough for Donghyuck to identify a familiar expression on his face. Focused, effective, methodical. 

“Come closer, Mark,” Donghyuck says without thinking. Mark gives him a grin, falls a foot downwards and closer to him. They blink at each other for a moment, then Mark sets off swinging again. Donghyuck watches him go fondly, squashing down the fear that’s been bubbling under his skin since the night before ( _he won’t leave he’ll be okay he won’t leave he’ll be okay_ ). He reminds himself that the better Mark can control his powers, the better he can hide them. And he knows Mark is well aware of that-- hence the single minded focus. 

Just then, Mark slips up, but catches himself just before he hits the ground. He swings up, flips in midair, then heads right back down. He lands facing away from them, looking at the back of the building. 

“Stay behind me,” he says tightly.

As soon as the words leave his mouth, something crashes straight through the back wall of the warehouse. It sends broken glass, dust, and rubble flying everywhere. Donghyuck rubs at his eyes and coughs the dust out of his lungs.

Turns out that something was actually a someone

“Woah,” says the lanky teenager that had just come tumbling through the wall, “who the hell are you?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come be my friend!!!! find me on on twitter: [here](https://twitter.com/_bluedesert_)  
> comments, questions, concerns are all welcome <333


	3. sun filters through

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was like 1k longer than I planned bc I had to write extra pining. oops!!
> 
> please enjoy

“Woah,” says the lanky teenager that had just come tumbling through the wall, “who the hell are you?”

“Who are _you_? Are you like me?” Mark asks, staring in shock at the broken wall.

“I asked you first,” beanpole boy retorts.

“We outnumber you. I think you should be answering the questions here, not asking them,” Donghyuck says, trying to look less spooked and more intimidating than he really feels. The teenager doesn't look impressed. It’s Donghyuck’s curse, really, that he’s this cute.

“Dude, I’m not trying to fight you all. First of all, I would win. Second of all, I just gotta know you're not gonna report me to the police,” the boy says.

“Trust me, I’m the last person that would report you to the police. I’m like you,” Mark says.

The boy studies them for a moment, then breaks into a grin. It makes him like five years younger. “Okay, if you say so. I’m Jisung by the way. Also, what do you mean I’m like you?”

“Aren’t you a super?” Mark asks.

“ _You’re_ a super? Holy shit. I’ve never met a super before,” Jisung gives Mark a once over. “Kinda thought supers are supposed to be a little scarier looking.” 

“Hey! I’m-- wait, what, you’re saying you're not a super?” says Mark

“You mean to tell us you broke through the wall with your bare fist?” Renjun interrupts, raising his eyebrows.

“With my bare fist? No, of course not,” Jisung says, and holds up his right hand. Donghyuck hadn’t noticed it before, but Jisung’s right hand is covered in a matte black glove. He can’t tell from this distance, but the texture looks weirdly solid. Like it shouldn’t be moving, despite it obviously following the movements of Jisung’s fingers.

“This,” Jisung says, “is my baby.” He proceeds to pick up a small piece of the concrete wall and crush it between his fingers. 

“That’s so dangerous,” Jaemin says in shock.

“Where did you find it?” Renjun asks. 

Jisung wipes the dust of the crushed concrete off his hand. “So, like, a few months ago I had run away from my foster home, because, well, you know how it is. Anyway, some guy came up and started mugging me. Which was kind of stupid because I didn’t have anything on me except my toothbrush and some of those Swiss Miss packets. Little did he know that I can like, totally fuck shit up. So even though he had this extra strength, the guy didn’t know how to use it. Once I figured out that it was his glove that was giving him his powers, I stole it. I’ve been using it ever since. Not to do anything bad though, I promise! It’s just fun to come out here and smash stuff. You know?”

Jisung speaks a little too fast, a little too soft, and a little too excited all at the same time. It’s actually kind of endearing. He can imagine Jaemin whipping up adoption papers in his head at the very moment.

“Oh my god,” Jaemin exclaims, “you could’ve gotten hurt.” Yup, there it is. 

“You never thought to turn in the glove? It’s technically a weapon,” Renjung points out.

“Uhhhhhh, no?” Jisung says.

“So you just come out here to smash stuff for fun?” Mark asks.

“My therapist says that physical outlets for my emotions really work for me,” Jisung admits, “And it’s pretty safe out here. I mean, isn’t that what you’re doing here?” 

They all glance at each other in hesitation. It seems reasonable to assume that Jisung is probably just a hyperactive kid in a bad situation, who came across some weird fashion statement that was probably discarded from a weapons manufacturing plant. Most importantly, he doesn’t seem to pose any kind of risk. 

“Yeah, I guess. But not to smash stuff, per se,” Mark says. 

“Oh, what's your superpower then? Is that the right word? Sorry, is that a rude question? I don’t really know how to talk to supers. I can’t believe I’m talking to one now honestly,” Jisung says with a little too much awe in his voice than Mark probably deserves. 

“Hah, don’t worry man,” Mark says, “here, I’ll show you.”

Mark proceeds to shoot his web into the air and goes off swinging around the warehouse. Had he tried to do that just an hour ago, he would have fallen flat on his ass. But Mark is unfortunately a quick learner, and a perfectionist. Instead of looking awkward and nervous, he’s already looking a little graceful. Almost. When he tries to land in a crouch, he crashes a little too hard and just barely catches himself before his face hits the ground. Donghyuck glowers a little as Jisung fawns over the display. No one seems to catch onto his displeasure, since everyone else seems to be busy fawning over Jisung. 

Jisung joins in and the two of them seemingly try to do their best to destroy the space. Mark covers everything in his thread, and Jisung plays around with crushing the already crushed rubble. The others seem to get energized by the wacky show, and even Donghyuck feels some excitement as they dare Jisung to karate-smash a concrete block and Mark to trap Jaemin against the wall in a net of web. 

The night ends when Mark says it’s time to head back home. Donghyuck is internally grateful, since he’s got a 9:30am class the next day, but takes a long time to get his stuff together with the others, just to give Mark a hard time. It takes an extra thirty minutes until everyone is piled in Jaemin’s car. Jisung is there too, since Jaemin demands he drive the kid home. Jisung looks grateful at first, until he actually gets to experience Jaemin’s driving. 

They drop him off first. He fidgets in the car for a few extra minutes, clearly trying to delay having to go. 

“Come over to my place whenever you want,” Jaemin offers.

“We can play video games together sometime,” Jeno adds on. A flurry of exchanging phone numbers and instagrams follows. Donghyuck pinches Jisung’s cheeks and then he’s out of the car, waving at them as they drive away. 

“I have a feeling we’ll be seeing him again soon,” Renjun says as they wave back at Jisung until they turn the corner and he’s out of sight. 

*******

A few weeks later, the face of Moon Taeil stares at him from his laptop screen.

“Taeil, can’t you write this article for me?” Donghyuck says. Taeil, unsurprisingly, doesn’t respond. 

“Moon Taeil is still your wallpaper?” Renjun says from across from him. They’re at a small coffee shop on campus, trying (and failing) to get work done. 

“He has been since my sophomore year of high school,” Donghyuck says proudly. That’s when Donghyuck had first discovered Taeil’s work. At the time, he was an up and coming journalist with a promising future. Now, he’s risen to international stardom and worked with some of the biggest news networks in the country. Donghyuck wrote his college essay about one of Taeil’s reports and how it led to his choice in major. 

Unfortunately, Taeil doesn’t even know Donghyuck exists. Unless he reads his fan mail, that is. Even if he does, he definitely won’t do Donghyuck’s article for him. Wendy expects it to be done by the end of the week and the last thing Donghyuck wants is to ask her for another extension. Honestly, Donghyuck has just been putting it off. 

It’s all Mark’s fault though. 

“I can’t believe Mark is with Jisung _again_ ,” Donghyuck says. 

“I think Jisung has been helping Mark a lot. Getting more comfortable with his, you know,” Renjun lowers his voice, “powers.”

“Yeah, but Mark has totally been ditching class for it. And I think he forgot about this article that we’re supposed to be writing.” 

They usually work on articles together. And usually it’s a _very_ collaborative experience. They both have a lot of opinions about how they should go, and it takes a lot of work to find a good compromise. But usually those articles full of compromises get a lot of praise from Wendy, Johnny, and the other senior members of BKU News. 

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound like Mark. But he’s going through a lot right now, so we should just let him cope however he needs to,” Renjun says, placating.

“Yeah. Well, he just doesn’t appreciate having the most amazing best friend in the whole wide world,” Donghyuck says. 

What he really wants to say is: why is it always me stepping back from Mark? Why am I the one who’s being too clingy? Why do I have to _break into his apartment_ to ask him what’s wrong? Should I be giving him space, or should he be letting me in?

Renjun gives him an unimpressed look. “You know just as well as I do that a lot of your issues could probably be resolved if you actually talked about your feelings with each other.” 

“Nothing good would come from a conversation like that. We fight enough as it is,” Donghyuck says. It’s inevitable. They’ll get riled up, or say something they don’t mean, or Donghyuck will accidentally kiss him and then immediately have to change his name and steal someone else’s identity. 

“Fine. Then nothing will get resolved and we’ll have this conversation again in another two weeks,” Renjun snaps, patience running out. Donghyuck glares at his computer screen in favor of responding. Taeil probably doesn’t have fights with his best friend. He also probably doesn’t crush on said best friend either. He probably has mature and honest relationships with everyone around him. 

“Whatever,” Donghyuck says stonily. More than anything, though, he’s angry at himself. He knows that even though his friends always listen to his complaining, they’re probably getting tired of talking about the same issues over and over again. 

“We don’t have to talk about this anymore. Sorry,” he gives in, blinking hard at his coffee. 

“It’s okay,” Rejun says, “and I’m sorry too. Hey, you can always bounce ideas for the article off of me.”

The tension in the air disappears as Donghyuck nods, glad for the change in topic. He pulls up the document with his first draft. It currently reads more like a list of random thoughts than a coherent article. 

Renjun reads through it quickly, face drawn in concentration. The article so far gives an explanation of the prosthetics Irene had demoed, details how quickly 3D printing can scale up the manufacturing of prosthetics, and highlights ZHE’s interest in this particular demographic. 

“It’s not a new demographic though,” Renjun points out, “ZHE always developed in the medicine side of biotech. It’s only in recent years they’ve shifted focus to supers.” 

Donghyuck thinks back to the argument he had with Mark, a few weeks ago at that party. Mark told him it was impossible to work in their field and avoid any conversation with supers. Donghyuck admits to himself that he’ll have to talk about supers in this article. He can do it professionally though-- there’s no reason his emotional bias has to get in the way of the quality of this article. Take that, Mark.

“Yeah, I should probably talk about the protests that came up after that shift. People didn’t like them partnering up with Red Cat and Yellow Witch, which means by extension partnering up with the military,” Donghyuck says. 

“You definitely should. But also, the extent of that partnership was only in protective gear. They never got into producing any kind of offensive aid, which is what people were really worried about,” Renjun says.

“Do you think those worries were unfounded? If the military offered ZHE enough money, don’t you think they would take them on as a client?” Donghyuck asks.

“I mean, would the money be worth the public outcry against them? And by partnering fully with the military, they’d completely stray from their original goals of using 3D printing to scale up medical equipment production.”

“That’s true,” Donghyuck hums, “I think that was the point of the demo, in a way. To reaffirm their original goals despite their partnership with supers.” 

“I do too,” Renjun says at him, smiling. Donghyuck grins and starts typing. 

After a few hours of productivity, he’s got a relatively polished draft of his article. One he would feel pretty good about turning in to Wendy. He might ask Johnny to look it over, if he’s not too busy with his own work. Renjun seems content with his problem set too, so they give back their coffee mugs and head home. 

Before he and Renjun break apart to their respective dorms, Donghyuck gives him a hug. Although typically prickly with affection, Renjun squeezes him back before letting him go. 

“See you soon, Hyuckie,” he says. 

*******

“The binomial distribution of the experiment tells us its probable success or failure,” the professor says, and gestures at the graph on the screen. Donghyuck doesn’t look up from where he’d doodling in Mark’s notebook. The slides are all online anyway. Mark isn’t watching the professor either. He’s got his phone under his desk, and scrolls through Instagram disinterestedly. Probably at least one of them should be paying attention. But Donghyuck is a little too invested in the drawing he’s leaving in Mark’s notebook to care. 

In his periphery, he notices someone calling Mark’s phone, but doesn’t catch the name. Mark pulls away from his desk. _My mom_ , he mouths, and slips out of the classroom to answer the call. While Mark is away Donghyuck resigns himself to taking notes. Doodling on Mark’s notebook is only fun when Mark is there to scold him for it anyway.

But when Mark comes back through the door with a weird look on his face, he doesn’t sit back down in his seat. He just picks up his backpack and jacket and looks at Donghyuck with a sense of urgency. Catching on, Donghyuck picks up his own stuff and they walk out of the classroom, which probably doesn’t go all that unnoticed by the professor.

“What happened?” Donghyuck demands once they’re in the hallway with the door closed behind them.

“Something happened at my parents store. I think there was a robbery,” Mark says. His voice sounds feather light, breathless. Shock. 

“Shit, fuck, okay. Let’s go,” Donghyuck says, and leads them out of the building. On the way to the subway station near campus, Donghyuck texts the others. 

“Do you want the others to meet you there?” Donghyuck asks. 

“I don’t-- I don’t know?” Mark answers.

 _Maybe not. I’ll keep you guys updated_ , Donghyuck responds as they step onto the subway. Mark probably wouldn’t like his friends crowding up his parents store anyway. 

Since it's the middle of the day, they score some seats and sit down. Mark’s legs won't stop shaking, and his gaze bounces around the subway cart frantically. 

“Hey, we’ll get there soon,” Donghyuck says, and puts a hand on Mark’s knee. Mark shifts to knock it off but stills slightly and nods. 

“Did your parents say anything else?” he asks. 

“No,” Mark says, “but they seemed really freaked.” 

The subway ride feels like it goes on forever. Mark sits tense beside him, staring at the floor. Donghyuck desperately tries to think of something else to say but, for once, words fail him. They just sit in silence as passengers step on and off. The noise and smells and sounds all fade for a moment when the subway emerges from underground. Donghyuck stares at his hands as the sun filters through the windows. Mark shifts a little closer. Donghyuck presses their shoulders together. Mark’s quick breaths slow fractionally. 

Then, it's their stop. They rush out, and begin the familiar walk to Mark’s family’s store. When it comes into view, Mark runs straight in while Donghyuck hangs back. It’s a familiar sight, usually. He remembers spending summers there, complaining about the humidity and keeping Mark company as he completed his shift at the cash register. When Mark would finish his shift, they’d go get ice cream and try to eat it as fast as possible, before it would melt in the summer heat. Then they’d go to the park a few blocks away. Mark would ride his skateboard and play music while Donhyuck would reenact some of Moon Taeil’s most famous reporting moments. 

But the store is a stranger to him today. The front door windows must have been completely shattered, because they leave gaping holes that are covered in yellow tape. Donghyuck’s stomach swoops at the amount of police swarming in and out. Mark stands next to his parents, looking smaller than Donghyuck is used to. They’re talking to a police officer. His dad has a hand on his shoulder. 

The amount of police and the apprehension in the air is worrying. One wrong move, and Mark’s identity could be revealed. Donghyuck knows, logically, that Mark has been spending almost all his time making sure that a slip up won't happen. He can blend in with the crowd and hide the webs that shoot from his hands, keep his fingertips sticking from walls, and move with the mild clumsiness and lack of balance most people have. 

The tension in Mark’s shoulders only adds to his own as he watches Mark talk to the police. He thinks about all the times he had wished Mark would shake off the careful way he does things-- there’s little impulsivity there. It had always been a push and pull between them, and Donghyuck didn’t always want to fight for every whim he had; he didn’t like having to face off against a wall of caution at every turn. It’s the first time _he’s_ on the opposite side, attentive to the changes in Mark’s body like it’s a time bomb about to explode in spider-y thread. But at the same time, Mark is Mark. He keeps a blank face and nods at whatever the police are telling them. Judging from the grim look on his parents faces, whatever the police are saying isn’t great. 

As soon as the conversation finishes, Mark and Donghyuck lock eyes. Mark’s parents notice his presence and wave him over. 

“Hyuck, it’s so good to see you!” Mark’s mom, Jieun, says as Donghyuck gives both parents a hug. They return it more enthusiastically than usual, giving him tight squeezes and ruffling his hair. Despite their pale, worried faces he can’t help but feel a warm glow in his chest as they ask him how his studies are going and if he’s eating enough. 

“You two should go upstairs while we figure all of this out,” Jieun says as another police officer approaches them. Mark looks like he wants to protest, but Donghyuck grabs his arm and leads him upstairs. 

As they walk away, he notices for the first time a strange dust is scattered throughout the entire front of the store. It looks translucent and glittery, and crunches slightly under his boots. 

“Don’t touch that,” Mark says when Donghyuck leans down to inspect it further. He doesn’t elaborate until they’re upstairs, in his family’s apartment. As they shrug off their jackets and backpacks, Mark explains, “that stuff on the ground is glass.”

“Glass? From where?” 

“Did you notice that the windows are gone?” Mark asks. 

“Yeah,” Donghyuck suddenly realizes that though the windows had been broken, he never saw any fragments of the windows on the ground. Except that odd dust. The glass dust. “But how could the windows be so thoroughly destroyed like that?”

“That’s the thing my parents and the police were discussing,” Mark says. He walks up to the living room window, and presses his hand against it. It doesn’t budge, or break, or explode into a million tiny pieces. “The robber had some sort of gun. He shot the windows and completely pulverized them.”

Mark’s hand on the window turns into a fist. “Apparently he used that to threaten my parents. He said if they didn’t give him their money, he’d do the same thing to them.” 

“Shit, what the fuck? Guns like that don’t even exist, right?” Donghyuck says, holding himself back from uncurling Mark’s fingers. 

He thinks of Jieun’s worried gaze as she had greeted him. “They must have been so afraid,” he says softly. 

Mark presses his head against the window. This time, Donghyuck doesn’t stop himself from coming to Mark’s side, mirroring his actions and pressing his own forehead to the window. They stare down at the street. Donghyuck moves to lean his head against Mark’s shoulder.

Mark shrugs him off. “I’m so fucking pissed though. If I was there, I could have helped them.” 

“It’s not like you could’ve known this would happen,” Donghyuck says, ignoring the sting of Mark’s rejected touch. 

“What’s the point of having all these powers, then?” Mark says and turns around so his back is leaning against the window instead. Donghyuck mirrors his actions again.

“I mean, what, now I can swing around a building and climb up walls? I can shoot weird ass spider web and do flips in mid air? For what? So I can spend all day worrying I’ll be caught, and be forced to leave college and leave--” he stops himself and takes a deep breath. “What’s the point of all that if I can’t even help my own family?” 

“Mark Lee,” Donghyuck says, and turns to place his hands on Mark’s shoulders. Mark tries to shrug him off, but Donghyuck just holds on tighter. “This is not something you can control. Bad shit happens-- bad shit happened to you, bad shit happened to your parents. The best we can do right now is help them in any way we can. So stop being dramatic, and let's figure out how to be helpful.”

Mark sputters defensively for a second, then hangs his head. When he makes eye contact again, he’s lost that frantic, wide-eyed gleam.

“Shit, you’re right. Since when am I the dramatic one? I thought I was supposed to be the rational one,” Mark says with a grin. 

“Whenever you lose your one brain cell, it comes to me instead. You should take it back though. I hate all this emotional maturity,” Donghyuck says with a grin and drops his hands. 

“All right,” Mark says while rubbing at his shoulders, “let’s do this.”

Turns out “this” is a little anticlimactic. While waiting for the fuss to settle down in the store they make tea in the kitchen and play music. They bring the tea down to Mark’s parents, who thank them with gratitude but shoo them away again. 

As soon as Mark’s parents let them, they head down again to help clean up. Mark and his mother pick up a fallen bookshelf while Donghyuck and Mark’s dad sweep away the powdery glass to the tune of Donghyuck’s chatter. He eagerly tells Mark’s parents about how well he’s doing in his classes, how his GPA is almost (almost!!!!) as good as Mark’s, and that he’s well on his way to becoming the next big thing in journalism and befriending Moon Taeil. The enthusiastic conversation puts a bemused smile on both parents’ faces as planned. They dump the glass carefully in the trash, and Donghyuck watches it shimmer strangely in the light. 

He knows that Mark’s parents probably have a lot of Adult Things to talk about-- insurance, paying for damages, possibly catching the perpetrator. Donghyuck makes a mental note to ask Jeno if it’s possible to throw the robber in prison for life. Sure, people don’t usually go to prison for life for robbery, and Donghyuck is avidly against the prison-industrial complex, but anyone who puts those frowns and shaky hands on Mark’s parents probably deserves it. Donghyuck feels a flash of anger while fishing out pieces of broken glass from the cracks in the ground as he thinks of how dangerous it would have been if that robber had aimed that weapon at Mark’s parents. 

When the mess is finally, finally cleaned up, the store remains closed and they order take out for dinner. It’s Mark’s turn to relay his life updates. He assures both parents that he’s doing well, despite their insistence that he seems tired. 

Donghyuck knows what he wants to tell Mark’s parents: your son isn’t doing his work! he’s spending all his time swinging on spider webs! he’s in the middle of an existential crisis! 

Instead, he remains silent while sending Mark pointed gazes through the conversation. Mark ignores him, of course, and convinces his parents all is well. 

After dinner they watch a movie. Donghyuck lets himself be coddled and fed popcorn. He makes sure to throw some at Mark, and they almost engage in a full out food battle until Mark’s parents calm them down. It’s almost like old times, except for the tense shoulders and distant, worried gazes. Then, Mark’s parents suggest (order) that they go into Mark’s old room while they discuss the aforementioned Adult Things. 

“It’s getting late,” Mark says, swiveling around in his old desk chair. Donghyuck hums noncommittally from Mark’s bed, twirling a basketball in his hands. 

“You should probably go home. Since, you know, it’s getting late,” Mark says, repeating himself. 

“Do you want me to go?” Donghyuck puts down the basketball. 

“Well, I mean, I just don’t want you to like, stay just because you feel like you should? I mean, if you want to go, you should,” Mark says, tripping over his words. 

This conversation could go in circles. Donghyuck knows, because they’ve had similar ones. But tonight, Donghyuck just wants to sleep in Mark’s family's house, and know that Mark’s parents go to bed early enough, and make sure Mark doesn’t have another freak out, and eat breakfast with them all in the morning like they used to after sleepovers. It’s not just about Donghyuck and Mark and Mark and Donghyuck this time. “I want to stay,” he says honestly, tiredly, even if it's not what Mark wants

“Okay,” Mark says. Donghyuck feels his gaze but chooses to ignore it, and picks up the basketball again.

While they get ready to sleep, Donghyuck tries to think of the last time he and Mark had slept together in the same bed. Not for a while, he realizes. Maybe at the beginning of last semester. But that was after a huge party and a messy night. They’d both passed out in Mark’s apartment. He’s pretty sure he felt nauseous the whole night and threw up the next morning. Mark had checked that he wasn’t dying, then complained about waking up too early and fell back asleep. Donghyuck had left Mark asleep, stinking of alcohol and cigarette smoke, to get Jaehyun to pity-buy him brunch. 

This time feels so different, and not just because he’s not drunk out of his mind. Mark hands him a spare t-shirt which smells like high school Mark. Like the detergent his family buys. Like all their previous sleepovers, where he’d force Mark to stay up with him and play video games until they both fell asleep with their controllers still in hand. When they climb into bed, it feels so much smaller even though Donghyuck knows that he hasn’t grown at all since he turned 18. Their ankles brush together, then their elbows. Mark lies on his back and Donghyuck snuggles up to his side, about to tickle and poke him until he pushes him off the bed like usual, but it makes him feel so hot and jumpy that he quickly turns away. 

“Good night, Hyuck,” Mark says quietly in the darkness, and turns onto his side too. Their backs awkwardly press against each other. Donghyuck wishes, for a second, that Mark would just turn over and fit himself against the curve of Donghyuck’s spine. He yells at himself for a full ten minutes for the thought. Donghyuck is Mark’s great, wonderful, ride-or-die best friend. And what best friends don’t do during a sleepover is think about cuddles and neck kisses. Nope, that’s not what he’s thinking about. Not at all. 

He stops that line of thought before it delves into even more dangerous territory. Instead of having those totally off limit thoughts, he shuffles onto his back, elbowing Mark a little as he turns, so that they aren’t touching anymore. Unfortunately, Mark sighs and flips onto his back too, and great, now their shoulders are touching. Really, he’s getting worked up over a shoulder touch? Jaemin and him have spooned countless times, and Donghyuck never got tripped up over it. Although, of course, it’s Mark. It’s Mark. 

As he struggles to control the slowly growing thing in his chest, he can almost hear Mark overthinking next to him. Mark’s breathing comes out too fast and shallow for him to be asleep, and he holds himself unnaturally still. 

“I can’t sleep,” Mark whispers into the space between them. It sounds like a secret. 

“Me neither.” Donghyuck turns his head to study Mark’s profile. He watches Mark squeeze his eyes shut and swallow. 

“Do you want to go up to the roof?” Mark asks. It’s definitely way too cold outside, and way too late. But he nods anyway. They both shrug on hoodies and jeans, and climb up Mark’s fire escape. Well, Donghyuck does. Mark just crawls up the wall of the building with his spidery powers, arms and knees jutted out at weird angles. 

The fresh air helps clear Donghyuck’s head. He pretends to stumble on his way up, just to hear Mark yelp in panic and subsequently whisper-yell at him for not being careful. They sit on the roof, where they spent so many nights in high school, passing a joint or a beer between them. The wind has the taste of winter in it and the sunrise is still far away, but they sit in comfortable silence, each in deep thought. Donghyuck’s mind wanders to the glittering glass that had looked like the lightest dusting of snow. The first snow of the winter, in a way. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come talk to me on twitter!! you can find me [here](https://twitter.com/_bluedesert_)
> 
> fic playlist: [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4aUdPUZQX6IeEvTWj0ckCP?si=bkgMHQenSfqbQJUqWSsTAg)
> 
> comments, crits, etc all welcome <3333


	4. slight detour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally got all of 7DREAM together in a scene! there is some plot and a lot of underlying feelings in this one. haha sorry  
> but have fun!!!

The best part about being Jaemin’s friend is that he has an expensive taste in food, and the bank account balance to afford it. Sure, there’s other valid reasons to be Jaemin’s friend (his kindness, his generosity, his Nintendo Switch, etc) but Donghyuck is mostly in it for the food. When Jaemin announces on another Sunday gathering that he’s craving sushi, the others immediately ask him to buy them Sugarfish. Jaemin agrees as soon as Jisung whines about how hungry he is and how he’s never had Sugarfish before. 

“I can go pick it up,” Donghyuck says, rubbing his eyes as they prickle, the way they always do when he’s been staring at his laptop screen for too long.

“I’ll come too,” Mark says quickly, jumping up to join Donghyuck as he shrugs on his jacket. Donghyuck nods nonchalantly, ignoring the way his stomach buzzes. 

They step into the elevator and ride down in silence. Mark seems to be deep in thought, and Donghyuck is too tired to parse through the amount of emotions rolling around in his chest. He realizes it’s the first time he and Mark have been alone since he was at Mark’s parents house a few weeks ago. In fact, since then he had only seen Mark once, in passing, when he’d stopped by his apartment to bring Jeno some bubble tea for a study session. Mark had seemingly given up all pretenses of still being invested in school, and according to Jisung, spent all night swinging from building to building and all day sleeping in. 

“Hyuck, I wanted to thank you,” Mark says as they step out of the elevator and into the bustling street. 

Donghyuck pulls his hood up as a sharp wind sends a shiver down his spine. “For what?”

“I saw that the article on ZHE was printed. Thanks for writing it. I know I should have helped,” Mark says. 

“Yeah, well, you seem really busy these days, pulling your little trapeze stunts,” Donghyuck says, trying and failing to keep the acid out of his voice. 

“Look, next time I promise I’ll help out,” Mark says, not taking the bait. Donghyuck just hums in response. They speed walk the few blocks to get to Sugarfish in silence again. It feels like they both have more to say, but sushi first, feelings later. 

After they exit the store with boxes of food in hand, Mark is the one who breaks the silence. “Look, the reason I’ve been gone a lot is because I’ve really been taking the time to think through some things.” 

“Oh yeah?” Donghyuck says. 

“And I kinda realized that’s what I always do, you know. Think things through,” Mark laughs a little. It sounds nervous. Donghyuck slows to get a good look at Mark's face. Mark stares resolutely at the ground. 

“What kind of stuff have you been thinking about this time?” Donghyuck says carefully. Instead of crossing the street he leads them another way, taking the longer way back to Jaemin’s building. Mark doesn’t comment on their change in route. 

“I used to think that there are some things I could just deal with on my own. Just, like, if I kept them inside me then one day I’d figure out how to resolve them, or act on them, or control them.” 

“You aren’t dealing with the super stuff alone though. We’re all here for you,” Donghyuck frowns. They’ve stopped walking at this point, and somehow have turned to face each other. He gets the sinking feeling that he may not want to hear where this conversation is going. Mark seems to struggle with what to say next. 

“Yeah, I know. It’s not just these powers I’m talking about. I mean, that too. I’m just-- I’m tired of stifling certain-- certain things and especially with you--”

Suddenly, Mark’s entire posture changes. His rambling stops, his hands still from their nervous twisting. He leans his head to the side, as if he’s listening to something. Before Donghyuck has time to think about either what Mark was trying to tell him, or what caused him to stop, Mark takes off running down one of the smaller streets.

“Something is wrong! Stay there!” he shouts over his shoulder. 

Donghyuck chases after him. When did Mark get this fast? He follows Mark around a bend and they reach a deserted alleyway. It takes a second to figure out what’s happening. Mark drops his box of sushi (“The _food_ ,” Donghyuck says and catches it before it hits the ground) and jumps into the fight that’s going on.

It’s not a fight, Donghyuck realizes a second later. It’s Chenle, frantically dodging as a guy shoots lasers from his eyes.

Hold on. Lasers?

Mark immediately shoots some of his web at the guy. He misses, but it succeeds in distracting the guy for a moment. Donghyuck takes the opportunity to run in and grab Chenle, pulling him away as fast as possible. They take cover behind a dumpster while Mark scales the wall and then jumps at the laser dude. 

“Holy shit, it’s you! Wait a second, is that Mark?” Chenle says, sounding way too excited as they watch Mark roll away from one of the lasers and kick out a leg to trip the other guy. 

“What happened?” Donghyuck hisses.

“That guys tried to mug me,” Chenle says. The both simultaneously wince as they watch Mark deliver a painful blow to the laser dude's head. It knocks the other guy's glasses off his head and the constant shooting of lasers stops. 

“It’s the glasses,” Donghyuck realizes, “the glasses are shooting the lasers.”

“What? I thought that guy was a super,” Chenle says, squinting as Mark ties the laser dude up in an excessive amount of spider web. 

Once it looks like the guy is solidly trapped, Donghyuck steps out with Chenle in tow. 

“That was awesome,” Chenle says, “you’re a super? I never would have guessed! Why didn’t you tell me when I saw you last time?” 

While Mark tries to fend off Chenle’s poking and prodding, Donghyuck picks up the glasses that had fallen to the ground.

“Where did you get these from?” he asks the guy tied up in web. 

“Fuck you,” laser dude answers unhelpfully. Donghyuck puts them on. Nothing happens. But then he looks a little too hard at the dumpster, thinks a little too hard about lasers, and something bright red and hot flashes in front of him. The dumpster goes up in flames. Everyone jumps away from the sudden heat.

“You were right,” Chenle says. He stretches out a hand and Donghyuck surprises himself by obligingly giving up the glasses. Something flashes across Chenle’s face-- recognition?-- and he kneels in front of the tied up bad guy. 

“Where did you get this?” he says. Donghyuck meets Mark’s eyes and raises his eyebrows at the change in Chenle’s voice. 

“What is it?” Mark asks. 

“It shouldn’t exist. It’s impossible. _Where did you get this_?” Chenle asks again, waving the glasses in laser dude's face. Mark steps forward, hand outstretched like he’s about to shoot again. 

“Don’t come near me, you freak,” laser dude spits at Mark. 

“Answer his question,” Mark says. 

“Look, my boss just got a haul of all this junk along with our normal stuff. He probably got it where he normally gets his shit,” the guys says, “I don’t really fuckin’ know.”

The light catches on the wire frame of the glasses. Donghyuck’ feels a sense of deja vu: Chenle’s light, airy voice, a pair of glasses in his hand, catching the blue light of various monitors at ZHE’s lab. But those glasses hadn’t shot lasers-- they’d just taken recordings of whatever Donghyuck was seeing and played it back for him. Harmless. Kind of. 

“Those look just like the ones ZHE makes,” Donghyuck says. Chenle twirls around.

“It can’t be. There’s no way ZHE would make something like this,” Chenle says.

“Are you sure?” Donghyuck presses. 

“Of course I’m sure!” Chenle answers, voice raised defensively. “ZHE doesn’t make weapons.”

“Guys, let's calm down. We can continue this conversation at Jaemin’s house,” Mark says, sending a pointed glance at their hostage. 

They fall silent and stare at the guy tied up on the ground. He’s clearly trying and failing to break out of his bindings. 

“Okay well, I guess this is good-bye. Don’t shoot anyone with lasers from now on, okay?” Donghyuck says brightly and drags Mark and Chenle out of the alleyway before he can respond. 

“Mark, should we tell someone that he’s there?” Donghyuck asks.

Mark sighs and nods, pulling out his phone. While he dials 911 to leave an anonymous tip, Donghyuck wonders how much jail time armed assault is worth. Jeno would know. Chenle sticks close to them, and Donghyuck puts an arm around his shoulders, glad that the kid doesn’t seem too spooked. 

“Oh, and there may be a fire,” Mark says to his phone, and quickly hangs up.

When they get to Jaemin’s place, everyone ignores the sushi Donghyuck had worked so hard to keep safe, and instead throws themselves at Chenle. Well, mostly Jaemin does that, wrapping Chenle in an octopus-like hug and swearing to kill the guy that hurt him. Chenle points out that he wasn’t actually hurt, but no one really listens to him. Renjun tries to engage him in some nerdy conversation about ZHE, and everyone else just barely follows along with the highly technical discussion that ensues. Jisung and Jeno try to steer the conversation towards eating the sushi instead.

Everyone quiets down when Mark clears his throat (for the fourth time). He recounts what had happened, and they pass around the glasses like it’s show-and-tell time in a kindergarten classroom. The glasses get the appropriate _oohs_ and _ahhs_ , and Jaemin convinces them not to try to shoot a laser in his very expensive home.

“I swear though, these look exactly like the ones I saw at ZHE’s labs. I mean, the glasses I saw don’t shoot lasers, but besides that it’s the same exact pair,” Donghyuck says once the glasses circle back to him.

“I know every single prototype that ZHE has released. And there’s no way they would make something like that,” Chenle says firmly. 

“Hold on, Chenle, have you ever seen Jisung’s glove?” Renjun says. 

Jisung pulls on his glove and bends a metal spoon in half to show Chenle what it can do. Chenle swallows nervously and runs his hands along the smooth, matte black texture while Jisung keeps perfectly still. 

“This texture. I’ve seen this before. But it didn’t have this kind of strength,” Chenle all but whispers. 

“There’s no way this is a coincidence. It has to be ZHE that’s manufacturing these,” Mark says. 

“I just… I can’t believe my father and Irene would do this. They wouldn’t be able to hide something this dangerous,” Chenle says, still not letting go of the glove. 

“Well, ZHE doesn’t have to be manufacturing these themselves. Someone else could be using ZHE’s printers and technology to make them,” Renjun points out.

Chenle shakes his head. “ZHE printer’s software isn’t open source. The only things that can be printed on those machines are something that ZHE itself has developed.” 

“What about when they partnered with supers? Who was writing that software, ZHE or the super’s team?” Donghyuck asks.

“ZHE can partner with clients to build something. But clients can’t just make whatever they want.” Chenle says. 

Donghyuck glances at Mark as Chenle speaks. He knows they’re both thinking about the spider that had bitten Mark. Who had built that? Or was it some sort of freak accident?

“It’s possible that someone partnered with ZHE behind closed doors. Or someone was able to hack into the printers and use them to create whatever they wanted,” Renjun argues. 

Chenle deflates and lets go of Jisung’s hand. “I guess so. Maybe. Irene would probably know the answers to that. But she’d never tell me.”

“Hold up,” Mark says, “do we have to go through ZHE? Instead of starting from the top, why don’t we start from the bottom.”

No seems to catch on to what he’s saying. “I mean, we could do what we just did today. If we find someone with these kinds of weapons, we can ask them who they got it from. Start from there and work our way up. See if we get to ZHE themselves, or someone else,” he says. 

“If there were a way to get notified whenever there was a report of a crime going on, with a suspected weapon that isn’t a traditional one, we could go there ourselves and check it out,” Jaemin says, grasping onto a thread of Mark’s plan. 

“I could figure out how to do that! There’s definitely a way to eavesdrop on 911 calls in the area,” Renjun says. 

“That way, we could also stop the perpetrator from commiting whatever crime they were planning,” Jeno adds.

“We could handle the perp better than the police could,” Jisung says, gesturing between himself and Mark. 

“Okay, hold on a second. This is getting out of hand,” Donghyuck interrupts the flow of ideas bouncing around. “Barging in on someone about to commit a violent crime sounds like a terrible idea to me.”

“Jisung and I could handle it. In a way, we’ve almost been preparing for this, with all the time we’ve spent at the warehouse,” Mark defends. 

“Okay, so say thanks to luck and minimal talent you don’t get hurt chasing people with unidentified weapons. What about the police? If they catch you, you’ll be shipped off to a testing center,” he says. 

“We’ll get out of there before the police can catch us. Jaemin can drive the getaway car,” Mark smiles at Jaemin. Donghyuck scoffs at the way Mark seems to have already made up his mind.

“I don’t know where you’re getting this confidence from. You’re not a superhero,” he says coldly, hoping the harshness will get through Mark’s thick head. 

Of course, it doesn’t, and only serves to rile up Mark even more. The others watch them argue in silence, heads swinging from one direction to the other like a tennis match. 

“Hyuck, my parents could have died from that crazy vaporizer gun. If there are people running around with dangerous weapons, we have to stop them. What if they get to my parents again, huh? What if they get to you?” Mark shoots back.

“You can’t put yourself in danger like that. It’s not worth it,” he says.

“I can’t just live the rest of my life constantly hiding this part of me! I’m tired of hiding and suppressing and keeping things inside _all the time_.” 

“The consequences just aren’t worth it!” he repeats. 

“Nothing is worth it if we think it’ll be doomed to fail from the very start. Don’t you think that maybe it could work out?” Mark says. His voice falls from an annoyed shout to something soft, scared. 

Donghyuck ignores the way it feels like his chest is caving in as he refuses to soften under Mark’s pleading gaze. “I can’t take my chances. Not with this”

Jisung moves to whisper in Jaemin’s ear, and Donghyuck just barely catches on to his quiet words. “Are they still talking about the superhero thing?”

Donghyuck feels his cheeks heat up as he remembers that they’re having the conversation in the middle of their group of friends. He tears his eyes away from Mark’s hurt gaze to look up at the ceiling, willing his eyes to stay dry. The feeling of the other’s gazes are hot on his skin. 

Renjun clears his throat. “Let’s get back to the topic at hand. Hyuck, if Mark wants to do this, it's his decision. And for the record, I agree with him. We have to get to the bottom of this.”

“Me too,” Jeno jumps in, “more people will get hurt if we don’t stop whatever is going on.” 

Donghyuck stares at them in disbelief. They’re willing to put themselves in danger, gamble their lives away, and for what? What can they do to really put a stop to all this? They’re willing to risk exposing and losing Mark? Nothing would be worth that. They all stare back at him, except Mark, who glares at a spot on the ground by Jeno’s shoes. 

“Fine. Do whatever you want, see if I care,” Donghyuck says, and storms out of the room. His burst of angry energy lasts only a few more seconds before he collapses against the wall of the hallway, vision swimming. 

It’s Jaemin who runs after him. Donghyuck keeps his hands over his eyes while Jaemin rubs soothing circles down his back. Behind his eyelids Donghyuck’s imagination works its way into a frenzy: Mark in Red Cat’s spandex suit, fighting bad guys. Jaemin driving his stupid pink minivan away from a fire, blood on his backseat. His parents and their lack of goodbye, leaving Donghyuck on his grandmother’s doorstep the moment after their powers went public. 

“I couldn’t keep them safe,” he says into his palms, “what if I can’t keep him safe either?” 

“We won’t let that happen,” Jaemin says lowly, face pressed into Donghyuck’s shoulder. “Mark isn’t going anywhere.” 

“Any of you could get in trouble for this,” Donghyuck protests, “how can I let that happen?”

“We’re a team, aren’t we?” Jaemin says. 

Donghyuck shrugs first, then nods slightly.

“We have to at least try. And if we try, we have to try together. There’s seven of us. Each and every one of us has six people watching our back. We’ll be okay. We have to be,” Jaemin says, lifting Donghyuck up from the ground. 

Donghyuck leans into Jaemin for one of his big hugs, but he isn’t convinced. Seven of us. More like seven targets, he thinks to himself, as Jaemin leads him back inside. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was quite short but i felt that a lot happened and it acts as kind of a turning point in the story, so it kind of deserved its own chapter?? and i also just wanted to get it out there lol
> 
> btw, u can find me on twitter [here](https://twitter.com/_bluedesert_)
> 
> lmk what u think in the comments!!! <33333


	5. dream sequence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys go full scooby doo gang. Irene makes an appearance, and Hyuck has a dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i ended up splitting up a chapter in two and this is the second part!! I'm so excited for Irene in this story omg she's so cool

“Hey, someone’s calling you,” Jaehyun says from his position at the foot of the bed. Donghyuck startles from where he’d been dozing, and jumps to his phone, heart stuttering when he sees that it’s Renjun calling.

“We’ve got something,” Renjun says as soon as Donghyuck picks up. 

“Shit, okay. I’m at Jaehyun’s. Should I come over?” Donghyuck says. Jaehyun raises an eyebrow in question and Donghyuck just waves him off. 

“Yeah, Jaemin already left to pick up Mark and Jisung. Chenle’s on his way and Jeno’s already here,” Renjun says. 

“Okay, I’ll be there soon,” Donghyuck says and hangs up. 

“You gotta bounce?” Jaehyun asks.

“Yeah, sorry. Something came up,” Donghyuck says while he hurriedly throws away the can of beer he’d been drinking and packs up his bag. Jaehyun thankfully doesn’t pry, hearing the urgency in Donghyuck’s voice. He ambles over to the door and watches Donghyuck struggle to slip on with his shoes.

“Anything I can help with?” he asks.

“No, don’t worry about it,” Donghyuck says while avoiding Jaehyun’s gaze. 

“You been sleeping enough though? You were fully about to knock out a second ago and it's only like eleven,” Jaehyun notes, casually standing in front of the door, clearly looking for a real answer.

“Nope,” Donghyuck says, twisting to get past Jaehyun and open the door. Jaehyun reaches out to ruffle his hair. 

“Don’t forget to stay safe, Hyuck,” he says, tugging a little. 

“Jeez, _Dad_ , leave me alone,” Donghyuck grumbles, pushing him away and then sending him off with a salute. Jaehyun wrinkles his nose at the nickname but waves goodbye.

Donghyuck speeds down the stairs and towards the subway station. He hopes he won’t be too late to catch the action. Ever since Renjun had rigged up the system to eavesdrop on 911 calls in the area, using some sort of complicated Natural Language Processing (that Donghyuck himself doesn’t really understand) to flag whenever a strange weapon is involved, any call from Renjun means a call for action. 

Of course, action in his case just means to huddle around the monitor at Jaemin’s place. Chenle opens the door for him when he knocks, and they carefully make their way over to the computer. The living room is unrecognizable. It’s filled to the brim with papers-- newspaper articles, ZHE business transactions, weaponry lawsuits-- that could give them even the smallest insight into what’s going on. Donghyuck throws away a discarded coffee cup before joining the others at the computer. Next to the computer is a map of the city, a red sticker at every place they’d gotten a call from. 

The computer shows Jaemin driving, from Jaemin’s own perspective. This is a relatively new development. The first few times Renjun had alerted them with a call, Jaemin had gone around and picked all seven of them up. They would all watch Mark and Jisung pull their whole vigilante act, and then spill out of the car to try to question the perp. After realizing that a seven on one discussion is way too chaotic, Mark had suggested that only Jisung, Jaemin, and himself actually go anywhere. So Chenle had gifted them some of ZHE’s unreleased recording glasses, and they’re able to use Jaemin as a proxy. Whatever Jaemin sees streams to Renjun’s computer screen, and they keep a group call going to be able to talk to each other.

Of course, it’s incredibly frustrating to view the action behind a computer screen. On one hand, Donghyuck understands that he’s far more productive to the group if he stays at Jaemin's place. He spends most of his free time combing through the internet: both shallow and deep. He knows more about weapon manufacturing that he ever really wanted to know, and has seen some truly disturbing things on the dark web. He’s able to use his own research to instruct Jisung and Mark what to ask the criminal once they actually catch them.

Still. Donghyuck feels so useless as he watches Mark and Jisung bolt out of the car and chase after someone with what looks like an enhanced flamethrower. Jaemin usually stays in the car during this part, so it’s hard to tell what’s really going on.

“Hurry up guys,” Renjun says into his phone, eyes on his watch. They’re getting uncomfortably close to the time that the police typically show up. 

“We’re trying. God, this guy is so obnoxious,” Mark’s voice comes in, breathless.

“He gave himself a _name_ ,” Jisung adds, “keeps on calling himself The Heat and referring to himself in third person.”

“SAY GOODBYE TO THE HEAT!!!!” filters through Mark’s airpods. A bright flash comes through the screen, and Donghyuck just barely makes out Mark and Jisung rolling away.

“At least come up with a better villain name,” Mark shouts back.

The fight doesn’t last much longer. As soon as Jisung breaks apart a fire hydrant, spraying water everywhere, The Heat’s flames can’t sustain anything lasting. Mark shoots his web and steals the flame thrower right from The Heat’s grip.

“ARGH,” The Heat yells as he’s enveloped in spider web. 

“Okay,” Donghyuck jumps in. This is his time to shine. “We’ve identified three Federal Firearm Licensees that have a corrupt gun dealing system in place. I think at least one of them has gotten their hands on these weapons.”

He quickly sends the groupchat the name and location of three weapon dealerships. “Ask him if he recognizes any of these places. Make sure you say that they’re legal gun dealerships.”

A combination of information Mark and Jisung had gotten out of previous people, and the research he and Jeno had been doing have given him three leads. After realizing that most weapons on the street are actually sold from corrupt (but legal) weapon dealerships, he’d tracked what the previous weapon-holders had told them, and places that had a precedent of dealing illegally in normal guns. 

As expected, The Heat is much more willing to answer questions that don’t incriminate him directly. Their original questioning method had been to ask something along the lines of “where did you get this, and do you know how dangerous and illegal this is????” Donghyuck had quickly put a stop to that nonsense, and made sure he always had specific and productive questions ready for Mark and Jisung when the time came. 

The Heat says that he knows one of those places (though not very nicely). Donghyuck scrambles for his packet on that particular dealer and puts a sticker on it. It has three already-- in his organizational system, it means that three people have identified it as a dealership they recognize.

“Ask him how he found out about that place,” Donghyuck presses. This is always the part that he could do-- interviewing took a certain level of shamelessness and being the right kind of annoying. When he and Mark would team up on articles for the newspaper, he would usually do the talking, whereas Mark would shine with his writing. 

After a bit more pressing and back and forth, they decide that they’re done for the night. They quickly make their exit, and Mark stows the flamethrower in the back of Jaemin’s trunk. 

“I think we really need to check this place out,” Renjun says, shuffling through some papers.

“I agree,” Chenle says, “and I actually had an idea for Hyuck.”

“Yeah?” Donghyuck asks.

“Since you’re part of BKU News, I wonder if I could convince Irene to have an interview with you. As a favor for me,” he explains.

“Yeah, that’s a good idea. It’ll be hard to get some solid answers without asking some pretty suspicious questions though,” Donghyuck says.

“Sure, but I think you’ll figure out a way to get something out of her. And, I was talking to Renjun,” Chenle gives them a devious smile, “if you distract Irene with the interview, I could try to get into her laptop. We’ll see if there’s any secret client’s she’s been talking to.”

“All right, we’ll give it a try,” Donghyuck agrees. Irene will definitely be the most powerful person he’s ever interviewed. He wonders if she’ll see right through him.

They try to clean up the mess of the living room before Jaemin gets back. The disarray has gone on long enough. Jaemin, Mark, and Jisung stumble into the apartment grinning with the adrenaline of a good fight and success. Donghyuck hates to see it, but Mark is smiling more these days than he had been the past few weeks.

Of course, that smile melts off his face as soon as he catches Donghyuck’s eyes. “Can I get the file on that dealer you’ve got going?” he asks stiffly. Donghyuck passes him the packet without saying anything, making sure their hands don’t touch.

“Anyone up for a late night snack? Pizza? Fries?” Jeno asks. 

“Actually, I think I’m gonna go,” Donghyuck says after everyone else cheers in excitement and hunger.

“Hyuuuuuck, stay with us,” Jaemin whines.

“It’s cool. I was hanging with Jaehyun before this anyway. I’ll probably just go back there,” Donghyuck says, knowing exactly what that sounds like, given his history with Jaehyun. He refuses to feel guilty at the looks thrown his way-- ranging from confused, to exasperated, to carefully impassive. 

Of course, the others still know that he is profusely unhappy with the whole situation they’ve got going, even if he admits that it’s going better than he thought it would. And yeah, sure, they’ve got some leads and some valid ideas, and the police haven't caught on yet (although Mark swears he saw a flash of Red Cat one time, when they just barely got away before the police could bust them). But Donghyuck still thinks what they’re doing isn’t worth the risks, and makes it clear by refusing to join any celebratory hang outs. Especially if his weird tension with Mark is just gonna make everyone uncomfortable, himself included.

Chenle surprises him by following him out, claiming an early morning tomorrow. Everyone pouts at them while they leave, and Donghyuck ignores the multiple meaningful looks sent his way. 

“I’ll order us an uber,” Chenle offers in the hallway.

“Okay, thanks,” Donghyuck says as they step into the elevator.

“Actually, there’s something else I wanted to talk to you about,” Chenle says. Donghyuck hums, unsurprised. 

“I think that we should actually go visit the gun distributors shop. I mean, it’s perfectly legal just to enter. We can use BKU News as an excuse to poke around.” They both zip up their jackets as they step into the cold street.

“But I don’t think that Mark should go,” Chenle continues, “There’s no way the police don’t have some kind of eye on that place, and we should avoid spreading his face around.”

“Agreed. Is that why you didn’t want to bring this up in front of the others?” Donghyuck asks. A black car pulls up to the corner and they slip in and greet the driver. The driver gives an amicable hello and pulls away from the curb. Music streams softly from the speakers.

“Kind of. I think Mark wouldn’t be happy if I suggested you go instead. And I’m really not looking to get between whatever you guys have going on right now,” Chenle says casually. Donghyuck glowers at the window. It shouldn’t be a surprise that they’re being obvious. 

“Just for the record, _I_ have no idea what’s going on between us right now,” Donghyuck says, ignoring Chenle’s disbelieving laugh, “Anyway, it’s not like Mark can tell me what I can and can’t do. If he’s not happy with me going, he’s just going to have to live with it.”

“Isn’t that a little hypocritical though? Aren’t you upset that Mark won’t listen to what you want him to do-- or what not to do?” Chenle points out.

Donghyuck, not quite used to being called out by his friends so directly, stares at Chenle in disbelief. This tiny excitable multimillionaire has got some nerve. 

“Anyway,” Chenle says, smirking at having rendered him speechless, “I’m not gonna fix your relationship issues for you. But if you’re down, we can both talk to Irene and go to the shop and see if we find anything useful.”

The uber driver must think he’s such a mess. Oh well. 

“Yeah, let’s do it,” Donghyuck says, letting the whole ‘relationship’ comment go. Chenle grins, looking far too delighted. 

“This is gonna be fun.”

*******

Irene, it turns out, is far more terrifying than Donghyuck expected. And Donghyuck prides himself in not being easily intimidated. She’s got an expensive looking business suit on, and lets them into her office with a quiet greeting and no smile. They sit at a coffee table, on an uncomfortable couch. From the first question, it’s clear that she’s mastered the art of giving answers that seem complete but give up absolutely no information. They navigate around each other for a while, Donghyuck smiling and nodding politely at her answers even when they both know he’s not happy with them.

The most important thing is that Irene is clearly focused on him, and not on Chenle’s fidgeting in the back. So no matter how out of depth he feels talking to her, he makes sure to keep her engaged in conversation as Chenle casually makes his way over to her desk. 

“What’s the process like when you partner with a client to build something new,” he asks. 

“Usually they will come in with a request and a set of requirements they need to consider that request fulfilled. We tend to build things in-house, but work closely with them to ensure we’re making what they need,” she says.

“Do clients ever build things on their end? Or is all of the software written here?” he says.

“We have a pre-made set of building blocks, you could say, that they can tailor to their needs. Usually that happens when they need to tailor something to specific users, but we tend to keep the users in mind when we’re building anyway. It doesn’t happen often,” she answers carefully.

“How far could a client change the basic structure of what you print? How extensive can this tailoring actually get?” he presses. Irene hums for a moment, thinking. 

“We don’t tend to give clients access to large amounts of our code. They wouldn’t be able to make any big structural changes without it,” she says. 

“ _Have_ you given any clients access to enough code to make any big changes?” he asks, trying not to squirm in discomfort under her gaze. 

“Like I said,” she says with a smile, “we tend to be quite thorough about what we build in house. There’s really no reason for clients to have to make any changes outside of some basic tailoring.”

Donghyuck looks down at his notebook and pretends to write something down, trying to hide his annoyance that she’s walking the conversation in circles. If he tries to get any more specific, she’ll get suspicious. He decides to switch over to something that has been nagging at him, a small curiosity that had led him down a deep rabbit hole online before coming to interview her.

“Why did you decide to take on supers as clients?” he asks.

“We wanted to provide them with state of the art protection that no one else has equipped them with,” is her practiced answer. 

“Sure, but supers have been around since ZHE was founded. You only partnered with them this past year, when Red Cat and Yellow Witch came into the public. Is there something specific about those two that made you want to take them on as clients?” he asks. 

“They were willing to partner with us, and put their lives in our hands. We provided them with their super suits thanks to their trust in our abilities,” Irene says.

“Did they come to you first?”

“It was more of a mutual interest.”

Donghyuck snaps his notebook closed. Enough circles.

“And do the names Lee Taeyong and Kang Seulgi mean anything to you?”

“I’m not quite sure what you mean,” she responds, drawing her hand up to push her hair over her shoulder.

“Those are Red Cat’s and Yellow Witch’s real names,” he states.

“Of course. It’s public information, for anyone who goes looking for it,” she says.

“Did you know them before they entered the training centers?” he asks, putting away his notebook. In his periphery vision, he sees Chenle slink towards Irene’s laptop.

Irene frowns at him. “Why would you think that?”

“Well, I just can’t understand why ZHE would partner with the two of them the moment they were publically released from the centers. For a biotech company specializing in medical equipment, it seems like an odd switch. Unless there was pressure from the military--”

“No,” she cuts him off, “as I’ve said before, we aren’t partnered with the military. We are only partnered with supers.” 

He grins at her triumphantly. Her distaste for the military is evident. He’d always wondered why ZHE had partnered with supers when Irene had previously shown a significant amount of anger towards those training centers. Her online footprint of liking and promoting anti-center agendas in the past had not been completely erased. 

“If not from an inside tip from the military, you must have had some connection to them previously,” he says.

Irene smiles at him. “Of course,” she says, leaning back into the cushion of the sofa, “Seulgi and I have been acquainted with each other for quite some time.”

He tries to hide his surprise at her admission. She just crosses her legs and continues to smile serenely. “That personal connection is what allowed us to establish the trust needed for our partnership. Again, it was of mutual interest.”

Donghyuck opens his mouth, about to press even harder now that he’s gotten this bit of information out of her. But she turns around to face Chenle, who has been following the conversation from Irene’s desk chair. He quickly swipes his hand away from her laptop, but Donghyuck can’t tell what exactly he had been doing. He can’t see Irene’s face, and only hopes that she didn’t catch the move. 

“Chenle, are you comfortable back there?” she asks softly. 

“Yup, yeah. Actually, it’s about time we go, I think,” Chenle says, springing out of the chair.

“That sounds about right. I’ll see you two out,” she says, and leads them to the door of her office. Donghyuck makes sure to thank her, returning her handshake and strange moment of prolonged eye contact. 

“I hope I was able to give you what you came for. Thank you for stopping by,” she says, and shuts the door in his face. 

“Dude,” Chenle whispers, “I didn’t know she was pals with Yellow Witch like that. And I’ve known her for years. How could I have missed this?”

“I don’t know, Le. But I’m starting to think we won’t find anything on that computer of hers, even if you did manage to sneak anything off of it,” Donghyuck says as they walk down the expansive corridors of ZHE’s building. 

“It’s worth a look. Even she’s not perfect,” Chenle says, waving a flash drive in his hand. Donghyuck wants to disagree, but nods instead. Even if they don’t find anything on that drive, they’ve still left with something more than they came with: Irene definitely has some sort of connection to Kang Seulgi. They pass by a promotional picture of the two supers in their special ZHE-made suits. Seulgi looks sharp and dangerous, and Taeyong’s gaze is piercing. 

If ZHE really does want to protect supers, it doesn’t make sense for them to be manufacturing weapons that wreak havoc on the streets of the city. 

“I can’t help but feel like Irene really is looking out for them,” he says, nodding at the picture. 

“Yeah,” Chenle agrees, “this is getting kind of complicated.” 

*******

It’s a Mark dream, because of course it is. These had only started a few months ago, and Donghyuck has given up on ignoring what his subconscious is clearly trying to tell him. 

They’re on Mark’s bed and he’s playing his guitar. He starts to sing a song in a quiet voice, Donghyuck joining in for the chorus. The edges of his vision are soft, and Mark glows in a way that doesn’t make sense in the dim lighting. The guitar chords come out clear, but their voices are garbled and distorted. It’s like they’re singing underwater. When the song ends, Mark carefully stows his guitar away. He comes back to the bed and Donghyuck wraps himself around him, pressing his face into Mark’s neck. Mark plays with his hair and hums softly. The sound feels like it’s coming from all around-- seeping out of Mark and his soft sweater, his arms, their entwined ankles. Donghyuck moves to hook his leg over Mark’s hip. 

Just as he feels Mark’s hands dip under his shirt and drag up his spine, the scene changes. They’re in the back of his car, and the song they had been singing is playing softly on the radio. Donghyuck blinks out the window in confusion, watching the dark sky sweep past. The road is empty, and the car seems to stretch out comfortably over the streets, taking up space and speed with confidence. 

In the front seat is his mother, and to her side his father dozes off. A warm presence on his shoulder makes itself known, and he finds Mark breathing deeply, also asleep. 

“Mom,” Donghyuck says quietly, trying not to wake the two sleepers in the car, “you have to get off the road.”

“What are you talking about Hyuckie?” his mom answers, just as quietly. The car continues to speed down the street, and a familiar intersection pops up in the distance. 

“Please, stop the car,” Donghyuck begs, still whispering. The car slowly minimally. Mark squirms a little and lifts his head from Donghyuck’s shoulder. 

“Is everything okay?” Mark asks. Then, a pair of headlights appears, flooding them with light. 

“ _Stop the car_ ,” Donghyuck screeches, but it’s too late. A crash, the sound of metal crunching. His parents are yelling from the front seat. He feels something warm trickle down the side of his face. A bright white flash and the world goes upside down. He closes his eyes at the sudden chaos.

Everything sounds distorted again. Whatever he hears comes in waves-- sirens, his mother's worried voice, Mark all the while whispering in his ear. His name, over and over again. 

“Why are you so afraid Hyuck? Don’t you want this?” he hears, and feels the ghost of Mark’s palm against his back. 

When he opens his eyes again, Mark’s voice stops. Donghyuck’s father, his eyes glowing red, pulls him out from the backseat and they glide straight through the car doors, passing through the metal and leather as if they were immaterial, floating through the space without touching anything.

They hit the ground hard, but Donghyuck’s father wraps his arms around him and takes the brunt of the fall. He sees his mother, flying through the air. She lands next to them, her hair hovering for a second before falling with the rest of her. 

“Are you okay? Are you hurt? Hyuck, where is that blood coming from?” she says, wiping away the hot red blood from his face. 

“I’m okay!” he says as her fingers press along his skull, not finding any injury. They watch the police wrestle the other driver out of his car. He’s clearly out of it, and turns suddenly to throw up on the pavement. 

“A drunk driver,” his dad says angrily. The disgust Donghyuck feels is replaced with fear as another policeman walks up to him. He has a deep frown on his face and a weapon in his hand.

“I’m gonna have to bring you all in too. You’ll have to testify, and then,” his eyes linger on Donghyuck’s father, who’s eyes begin to glow red again, “I’ll have to bring you in to register as supers.” 

“Of course, officer,” Donghyuck’s mother says sweetly, “there’s just one problem.”

“What is it,” the policeman asks gruffly.

“You’ll have to catch us first,” she says quickly, and then Donghyuck is being lifted into his mother’s arms and they shoot up into the sky, just as his father melts into the concrete.

“Dad! Dad!” Donghyuck cries, struggling against his mother's hold as his stomach swoops at their altitude. 

“It’s okay Hyuckie. He’ll meet us there,” she whispers into his hair.

“Where are we going?” he asks.

“We’re gonna pay a visit to Grandma,” she says. He frowns as something else tugs at his memory. What’s missing?

“Mark!” he says suddenly, “where is Mark?” 

His mother tightens her hold on him. “Who’s Mark?”

“He was in the car with us! He was there!” he says, feeling so panicked that he can barely think. 

“There was no Mark in the car with us Hyuck,” his mother responds, rubbing soothing circles in his shoulders. He just curls up in her arms, not sure what to say or what to think or what’s going on. It feels like a huge blow to the chest. A huge loss is coming, he knows, but he’s not sure how. 

*******

Donghyuck startles awake. He can still hear the wind whistling in his ear as his mother flies them through the air. He rubs his hands over his face, and checks the time on his phone. It’s almost 6AM.

The Mark dreams have been an issue for a few months, but they’ve never turned out like this. Mark has never shown up in the dream that replays the memories of the car crash. He hasn’t had that particular dream for a while now-- not since his Grandmother had sent him to a therapist in early high school. 

This was so much worse than the other dreams. Sure, it sucks to wake up hot and sticky, scared of what he feels for his best friend. But it’s even worse to dream about losing him.

Mark had always been very removed from the disappearance of his parents. Mark is a steady, safe, continuous presence in his life.

Not anymore though, he realizes. It’s not just the way his usual confidence in the strength of their friendship has been tested by a change in feelings-- by the fact that every warm look, every lingering hand suddenly weighs so much more on him than they should. But also because Mark is risking his safety all the time now, and Donghyuck can’t do anything to stop it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always comments, questions, concerns are all welcome!!!! 
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/_bluedesert_)


	6. stakeout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cake, a stakeout, and sincerity

Donghyuck stays in bed most of the day, which is probably a mistake, because the dream stays in bed with him. He scrolls through his phone, refreshing and refreshing different apps in hopes of distracting himself from the whispers of his name in a familiar voice, the memories of the car crash played across his eyelids every time he closes his eyes. He ignores his notifications, for once not feeling up to talking to anyone. 

Eventually he can literally feel his muscles atrophying and his stomach cramps from the lack of food. He stumbles into his kitchen, chugs a full glass of water and swallows a granola bar whole. The food and drink help him clear his mind, and he makes a snap decision to leave the house. He doesn’t change out of his dirty sweatpants, but slips on his (equally dirty) hoodie, pulls on his headphones and plays the most upbeat, energetic song he can find on his playlist. He uses his momentum to drag himself to the subway station, and collapses onto the first seat he can find as soon as the train pulls in.

He gets off at an all too familiar station. If he turns one way, he’ll end up at Mark’s parents’ place. He wonders if they’ve got the windows fixed yet. But he goes the other way, and turns down the street of his Grandmother’s house. He walks up the steps of the building and knocks on the front door.

“And who are you?” his Grandmother says as soon as she opens the door.

“Grandma, let me in,” Donghyuck says, trying his best to look less like a mess.

“Grandma? I’m not Grandma,” she looks off to the distance wistfully, “I used to have a grandson. Have no idea where he is, he fell off the map a while ago.”

“I’m sorry for not calling. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks,” he says, trying to inch his way past her. Something about his demeanor (probably his miserable bedhead that’s impossible to hide) clues her into the fact that he’s one second from crying on her doorstep, so she opens the door wider and tugs him in.

“Let’s get you fed,” she says, and drags him directly into the kitchen and sits him at the table. Somehow, probably because she’s the most incredible person in the universe, there’s stew-- hot and delicious-- ready for him. She passes him a spoon and he immediately scarfs down the meal. She doesn’t say anything, just watches him and fills up his bowl again when he finishes.

He eats his second serving much slower. As he takes careful sips he can feel her gaze-- she’s waiting for him to speak first. “I had a dream last night. About the crash,” he says. Her eyes soften and she reaches out to stroke his free hand. She lets him continue to eat his food and think about what he wants to say.

“There’s been some stuff going on that has made me think of my parents,” he says, “it sucks.” 

“I’m sorry,” she hums.

“I thought I was over the crash. Y’know, I spent so much time afterwards, working through it,” he explains, “why does it have to come back like this?”

He knows he’s not giving her any real information, but he can’t bring himself to talk about Mark’s powers, or the weapons they’ve encountered, or their most recent, very illegal activities. Luckily, she doesn’t press him for more details.

“This was never something you had to get over,” she reminds him, “you just have to learn to live with it in a way that it doesn’t control you.”

He puts arms on the table and rests his head against them. The part of him that wants to climb right back into bed, ignore everyone and spend his time letting his thoughts run in circles, wants to protest. Wants to let himself be controlled by what happened, wants to give up the reins, wants to rest from trying to think himself out of his own mental traps. But the part of him that allows his Grandmother to hug him tells him to stay right where he is.

He eventually gets up and helps her clean up the table. She tells him she was thinking of baking a cake, for no real reason, and invites him to stay and make it with her. He can see through her story, but agrees anyway. He feels a little better as he starts to make himself useful, measuring the flour and sugar carefully. 

He gets the genius idea of putting food coloring in their frosting, and spends way too long trying to mix things to get the exact color he wants. What he imagined to be a pretty blue color turns into a strange gray, so they ditch the colored frosting and decide to just cover the cake in M&Ms, which is a better idea anyway.

In the meantime, his Grandma gossips to him about her neighbors, tells him about her recent favorite TV shows, and he shows her some new music he’s been listening to. He almost feels back to normal, until a song Mark had shown him plays and he goes quiet again. 

“You know Mark Lee,” he asks suddenly, as they stare at the cake in the oven. He’s snacking on M&Ms while they wait.

“Do I _know_ Mark Lee,” his Granma snorts, and steals an M&M, “I’ve known that kid for as long as you have. That’s what? Seven years now?” 

“Yeah, seven years,” he says. “I think I’ve done something really stupid.”

“I’m not surprised,” she teases, “what did you do?”

“I think I-- I have feelings for him?” he says.

It feels good to say it out loud. It’s a topic he’s skirted around with all his friends. He’s never told anyone outright. He’s kind of surprised a hole hasn’t opened up in the ground and swallowed him whole.

“I have feelings for Mark Lee,” he says, stronger this time. Maybe the universe just hadn’t heard him. 

Still, nothing catastrophic happens. His Grandmother looks at him like she’s trying not to laugh. “It’s not funny,” he says indignantly.

“I’m not laughing,” she says, laughing. “It took you long enough.”

“What do you mean?” he demands.

“You’re such a smart boy,” she ruffles his hair. He allows it, only because she fed him. “I was always so surprised you had missed this.”

“I’m not smart! I’m an idiot! How could I let this happen? This is the worst thing ever.” He stuffs about twenty M&Ms into his mouth at once. 

“Why?” she says, and great, now she’s full blown cackling. “Haven’t you seen how that boy looks at you?” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he grumbles. 

“So, what are you gonna do?” she asks.

“What am I gonna do? What is there to do? I’m just gonna look up sad love songs to cry to on Friday nights.”

“You could also tell him how you feel.”

“Grandma, I love you, but that’s a horrible idea.”

“Why? I want you to get together already. I’m sure Mark does too, he’s been waiting so long,” she says.

“First of all, the last thing I want is for us to get together. And what do you mean, he’s been waiting so long?”

“Hold on, you have feelings for him, but you don’t actually want to be with him?” she says, holding up a hand, like he’s offended her. 

“Of course not! If we get together, we’ll probably just break up. I mean, either we break up, or we get married and that’s just. That’s just insane,” he says, finally pushing the M&Ms away. If he eats any more, they won’t have enough for the cake.

“So what if you break up?” she asks. 

He looks at her in disbelief. “I mean, I just can’t risk our friendship like that.” 

“Hyuck, you and Mark have been incredibly close for so long. You’ve been best friends all this time, and you think a breakup could change that?” she ruffles his hair, this time a little rougher than strictly necessary. “Use that brain of yours. Don’t you remember the first time you met him?”

“Of course,” he says, “he was skateboarding right by our place and ate shit-- sorry, I mean, he fell off right in front of me. So I told him he was a terrible skateboarder and he made me hang out with him every day at the skate park until he proved me wrong.” 

It’s a good memory. Mark had been so tiny and shocked by Donghyuck’s light hearted insult. He’d turned tiny and indignant as he forced Donghyuck to watch him fail to ollie for months. Donghyuck only went along with it at first because he got to make fun of Mark the whole time. Then Mark actually got good at skateboarding and he had to find something new to tease Mark about. Luckily, there was plenty to work with. 

“Why do you think he was skateboarding on this street specifically?” his Grandmother asks, a little impatiently.

“Luck? Coincidence? The red strings of fate?” Donghyuck says. 

“No! He never told you this? That kid is such an idiot-- you two are made for each other. He saw you at school before that and wanted to be friends. When he saw that you lived near each other, he decided to skateboard up and down this block until you found him. I caught him before you did, and he told me not to tell you,” she explains.

Suddenly, a hidden part of that memory comes forward. His Grandmother had asked him to leave the house to go buy milk, even though they weren’t out of it. He’d been confused about it, until he had bumped into Mark on the way and gotten distracted by meeting his future very best friend. He doesn’t even remember if he ended up getting the milk.

“What the hell,” he says quietly to himself, and pulls the candy back towards him again, “Mark doesn’t tell me shit.”

“Don’t curse,” his Grandmother reminds him, “and anyway, Mark has loved you for a long time, one way or another. You should remember that.” 

The oven beeps, saving him from having to answer, or having any kind of emotional epiphany. They decorate the cake and each have a slice, moving on to lighter topics. The sugar and mindless chatter ease his mind yet again.

Eventually, one of his Grandmother’s friends calls and he checks his phone while she attends her own. He’s got too many notifications from the group chat to read, but opens the texts Jaehyun had sent him. He’s invited to a party at his place, and yes, he can bring his friends. Donghyuck checks the time. It’s almost 8pm. He has time to coordinate with the others and make it there at a reasonable time. _Okay, I’ll be there!!!_ he types. 

**big bad sad bois**

Donghyuck [8:12]

_anyone down to party tn?_

Jaemin [8:13]

_yes!!_

Donghyuck [8:13]

_jaehyun is having a thing at his place_

Jaemin [8:14]

_oh,,, yeah ok im down_

Jaemin [8:15]

_wanna pregame at mine?_

Donghyuck [8:16]

_yea. im at my granmas house can head over there soon_

Jaemin [8:20]

_yay! i’m w Jeno rn. is it cool if we invite the Kids_

Donghyuck [8:21]

_the kids? the minors? chenle n jisung?_

Jemin [8:21]

_yeah_

Donghyuck [8:22]

_ok sure_

After another slice of cake, a long hug, and lots of cheek pinching, Donghyuck leaves his Grandmothers and heads directly to Jaemin’s place. Showing up to a pregame in sweatpants isn’t a great look, but the tupperware container full of cake will help his case. Luckily, when he gets to Jaemin’s apartment, everyone is a little tipsy and much too excited about the food to comment on his appearance. He quizzes Jisung and Chenle to make sure they know how to handle their alcohol (he comes to the conclusion that they probably don’t, but in a fun way) and then helps Jeno move all of their documents about the whole crazy weapon scheme away from any and all liquid. Mark shows up somewhere around then, and gives a brief hello to the group before going off to giggle over a beer with Renjun in the kitchen.

“You’re being really obvious,” Jeno whispers, catching him red handed in the act of gazing longingly at the back of Mark’s head. (It’s a cute head.)

“Fuck off,” he says, and Jeno laughs. 

They have a round of shots and then stumble into the elevator to head to Jaehyun’s place, which is in Manhattan. They order an uber, because the L Train is trash these days and it’ll take them an hour to get to Jaehyun’s if they choose to take the subway. Jeno offers to pay, sending out Venmo requests as the car pulls up to the curb.

“Hello,” Jeno says politely, and apologetically, to the driver as they climb in. The driver just laughs at their inability to hide their tipsiness and general chaos, and offers them the aux. Chenle immediately jumps at the offer and the car pulses with music as they make their way across the bridge. 

To Donghyuck’s absolute horror and elation, Mark is pressed up right against him. He glares at Renjun, on Mark’s other side, who he’s sure planned this unfortunate predicament. He ignores Mark and stares out the window, singing along to the songs and taking sips of his water bottle filled with tequila and orange juice. Mark surprises him by asking for the bottle.

“Sure,” Donghyuck says. Their fingers touch as he hands it over, although to be fair everything, from their shoulders to their thighs, is touching. Mark takes a quick swing. Everyone eyes their interaction with little discretion, which is the only thing that stops him from grabbing Mark’s shoulders and shaking him until whatever is going on in his head comes tumbling out. 

Jaehyun’s party is way chiller than Yukhei’s party. For one, the music is just normal loud instead of earsplitting. There’s way fewer people, and the main attraction of the night is the beer pong table. Donghyuck looks over at Chenle and Jisung-- Jisung looks mildly terrified at the influx of strangers, but Chenle is inching over to the beer pong table with interest. 

“Everyone here is really nice,” he slings an arm over Jisung’s shoulders, “why don’t you play a game of beer pong with Chenle?”

Donghyuck loses the others as he urges the kids to play a game against Jaehyun and Yeri, who he greets with big hugs. 

“I’m betting on Chenle and Jisung though, just by the way,” he says into Jaehyun’s shoulder. 

Jaehyun shrugs him off playfully. “Fine, traitor, go join your other friends then.”

Turns out his intuition worked pretty well, because Jisung turns into a Beer Pong God and absolutely demolishes Jaehyun and Yeri. It’s also largely because Yeri is not playing as well as she usually does-- which he realizes is because she enjoys Jaehyun’s steadily deepening frown as his team loses. 

“You’re such a sore loser,” she says, delighted, as she misses the cup and Jaehyun groans into his hands in despair. 

“You and Hyuck both suck,” he says as Jisung’s ball flies into a cup. Jisung tries to hide the smug look on his face while Chenle offers him a high five.

“I already see where this game is going, and I need to find a drink,” Donghyuck announces, realizing he had emptied out his bottle from the pregame already, “Jaehyun, I hope you know you brought this onto yourself.”

He leaves a cackling Yeri and indignant Jaehyun to find something to drink, ducking away from the ping pong ball that flies in his direction. After finding something drinkable in the kitchen, he heads off to find some other people to entertain him. He finds Jeno and Jaemin in the bathroom, sitting in the bathtub and sharing a blunt. 

“Hey stoners,” he says, plopping down in between them, which earns him two playful slaps from either side. 

“Why yes, Hyuck, you can totally join us,” Jaemin says. Donghyuck just lays his head on Jaemin’s shoulder. 

“Chenle and Jisung are playing beer pong. Where are the others?” he asks. Jeno passes him their blunt. 

“Renjun is helping Mark through yet another existential crisis,” Jeno says in a long-suffering voice.

“ _What_ ,” Donghyuck says, sitting up and looking around like he’ll find Mark under the toilet. He doesn't. He takes another hit of the blunt instead. 

“He’ll be okay,” Jeno says, “he just smoked a bit too much. Anyway, you know, you guys should talk things through soon.”

Donghyuck immediately tries to jump out of the bathtub, but two pairs of strong hands keep him in place.

“Don’t just run away!” Jaemin says. 

“Fine fine fine. God, you guys are annoying. I’ll talk to him,” he concedes.

“Good,” Jeno relaxes his hold, “because this is getting a little out of hand.” He takes a sip of his cup, and frowns when no liquid comes out. “I’m gonna go get some more beer. You guys want any?” 

They shake their heads and Jeno carefully closes the door behind him. Donghyuck digs his chin into Jaemin’s shoulder.

“So, how’s it going?” he asks.

Jaemin laughs and presses his head against Donghyuck’s. “I’ve been better.” 

“Oh yeah?” 

“I’m failing two of my classes,” Jaemin admits. “It’s just impossible to concentrate these days, with all the other stuff we have going on. And honestly, the late nights are really getting to me.”

“Yeah, it’s hard to catch up on all the sleep we’re missing,” Donghyuck hums, “what classes are you failing? Maybe you can find someone to tutor you.”

“I guess. Honestly I’m just totally unmotivated to do any school work. It’s hard to feel like class is important when you’re watching two of your best friends risk their lives every couple of days.”

“That I definitely understand,” Donghyuck says. “It must be hard to be watching from the car too.” 

“For sure. I can’t help but wonder-- if one of them got seriously hurt, what would I do? I couldn’t just jump in there and help them. I mean, I don’t have spidey powers or a super strength glove,” Jaemin says.

“I don’t know,” Donghyuck says, “but if something bad did happen, it wouldn’t just be on you to fix it. We’re not there with you physically, but we’re watching everything that’s going on. We’re keeping an eye out on all three of you.”

“It’s like you said,” he continues, wondering if he believes what he’s saying, “we’re a team.” 

The conversation drops when Jeno walks in, trailed by a red-eyed Mark. 

“Heard you can’t handle your weed,” Jaemin teases, standing up. He and Jeno share a look, and to Donghyuck’s horror they replace Jaemin with Mark in the bathtub. “We’ll be right back,” Jaemin says, and the two of them leave with mischievous smiles. He stares at the closed door in disbelief. He gives Jaemin great advice, and this is how he’s repaid? 

“Hey,” Mark says slowly. He reaches out to pat Donghyuck’s hair, which still hasn’t recovered from its bedhead from the morning. 

“Soft,” Mark murmurs.

“Jeez, how high are you,” Donghyuck laughs nervously, but allows his hair to be petted. 

“I’m okay. You ever touched Nana’s hair? It feels like crispy seaweed, ‘cause of all the bleach,” Mark says, fully running his hands through Donghyuck’s hair now.

“Yeah, it’s because he’s going for such a light color,” Donghyuck says, leaning into the touch just a little. His stomach spins, and he can’t tell if it’s a natural reaction or if he’s drank more than usual. 

Mark just hums and continues his petting. “I wonder what’s going on under here. I always wonder. What are you thinking about?” 

Donghyuck swallows. He thinks about the last real conversation he had with Mark. Where Mark had clearly been trying to tell him something important-- about how he’d always kept things bottled up. He remembers his Grandmother’s words: “Mark has loved you for a long time.” He can guess at what Mark had been trying to say; Mark who likes to think through things on his own, who won’t talk about what he’s going through unless you put him on the spot. Mark who, of his own volition-- does he even dare think this?-- wanted to admit his feelings. Now it’s Mark’s turn to wonder what Donghyuck is keeping locked inside himself. 

“I’m always thinking about you,” Donghyuck whispers. The fingers running through his hair stop and trail down his cheek. 

“What does that mean?” Mark says. Donghyuck looks into his eyes, red-tinged, pupils dilated. His hair falls down his forehead, and shadows graze his cheeks. 

“I don’t know,” Donghyuck admits, not missing the flicker of hurt across Mark’s face before it falls away, “my brain feels all tangled up these days.”

“It’s okay,” Mark says, and lets his hand fall away, only to give him a soft smile. “You can take your time. You don’t have to decide anything right now.”

“There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about,” Mark continues after a moment of silence. “I know that you and Chenle want to go stake out that weapon dealership.”

Donghyuck knocks his head against the wall. “Way to kill the vibe. You really wanna talk about this now? How did you even find out?”

“Chenle told Jisung, who told Jaemin, who told me,” Mark says with a wry grin. “Between the seven of us it’s impossible to keep a secret.”

“I hate them,” Donghyuck whines. “Anyway, you can’t stop me.” 

“Hey, I’m not gonna stop you,” Mark says.

“You’re not?” 

“Hyuck, I don’t think there’s anybody in the world that could stop you from doing something you really wanted to do,” Mark jokes, “anyway, I know it’s not my place to tell you what to do like that. But let me come with you. I’ll keep hidden, and just watch what goes in and out of the store. I won’t go inside.”

He stares at his hands. “Okay,” he says. He wonders why Mark isn’t reacting like he expects him to-- taking everything on himself and keeping Donghyuck out of harm’s way. Perhaps unfortunately, Mark picks up on what he’s thinking. 

“Look, you watch me fight off wackos with dangerous weapons every other day. It’s about time I let you in on some of the action,” Mark teasinges, but Donghyuck can read between the lines. 

“I--” Donghyuck starts, then stops himself, not sure what he wants to say. Mark Lee, the only person who can render him speechless.

“Yeah, okay,” he finishes lamely. He hopes they’re right about this dealership not only selling weapons illegally, but also having somehow picked up the possibly-ZHE made ones. The faster they can crack this case, the better.

*******

Since Donghyuck dressed way down for Jaehyun’s party, he decides to dress it up for a late night stake out. He pulls on his favorite leather jacket with the pins and makes sure he looks both cute and badass. He meets Mark a few blocks away from their target, who is holding a gift bag from Chenle.

“Look at this shit, he got them special-made for us,” Mark says, excited as he pulls out fancy looking binoculars. They’ve also got a couple of small bugs that track everything they hear. Donghyuck puts a few of them in his pocket, and they separate ways a block away from the shop. 

Donghyuck enters the shop alone. He knows that Mark will be watching from the building across the street. Having never been to a gun shop before, he’s uncomfortable and overwhelmed by the amount of guns on the wall. They cover two entire walls from top to bottom. The cashier sits behind the register, a door to her right. 

The cashier eyes him carefully, and Donghyuck offers her a nod before looking around casually. He had looked up the building plan before coming, and he knows that behind that door is a relatively large room. That could be where the other weapons are stored. 

He dips his hands into his pockets, then walks up to the cashier with a friendly smile, placing his hands on the edge of the counter. 

“You look kinda young to be in here, pal,” the cashier says.

“Actually, I’m not here to buy,” Donghyuck says, offering his most earnest look. “I go to school at BKU, and I’m part of the newspaper there. I was wondering if I could interview you for an article I’m writing.” 

He doesn’t falter under the critical once-over the cashier gives him. Eventually, she rolls her eyes and nods her head.

“Okay kid, ask your questions. Be quick about it,” she says.

He beams at her and starts off with some easy questions-- what’s the process needed to get a Federal Firearm License? How much does it cost? While she speaks, he nods along with the right amount of enthusiasm and holds eye contact while carefully fiddling with the bug under the edge of the counter. He bites back a triumphant grin as he gets it to stick, buzzing against his finger, signaling that it’s been turned on. 

Now what he really needs to do is get behind that door. 

“What’s the storage process of a gun like? Do you need to keep it under certain conditions?” he asks.

“It’s important to keep them dry-- that’s why we use ammonia-free cleansers to keep moisture from building up,” the cashier explains.

“Would it be possible for me to see your storage set up?” he asks, letting his eyes stray to the door to the right.

The cashier immediately locks her jaw. “No,” she says, crossing her arms. 

“Are you sure? I’m just curious a--”

“It’s off limits,” the cashier says, playing with the rings adorning her fingers. 

“Okay, sure,” he backs off, throwing in a couple safe questions. She answers the rest of them more comfortably, hands falling back to her sides. Eventually, he thanks her and leaves the store. He walks over to a nearby alleyway, and tries not to jump when Mark falls down next to him, landing in a crouch.

Mark grins, waving at him, phone in hand. “The bug you placed sends everything it hears to my phone.” The thrill of success-- a small one, but a success nonetheless-- feels good. He didn’t get into the storage room, but maybe placing the bug is all they need. 

They climb up an abandoned fire escape and make it up to the roof. He clumsily gets on Mark’s back, and Mark jumps from rooftop to rooftop until they’re at the building across the street from the shop. They have a clear view of the entrance, a microphone leaking everything that’s said in the store, and binoculars to monitor what is going on. It’s a strange kind of voyeurism. 

“And now we wait,” Donghyuck says, making himself comfortable on top of the picnic blanket Mark lays down. 

No one else comes to the store before it’s official closing hours. He and Mark spend a few hours keeping an ear on whatever the bug picks up (sounds like the cashier is scrolling through TikTok) but spend most of the time chatting mindlessly, playing games on their phones, and daring each other to throw tiny pieces of paper off the roof. Despite the bizarre situation they’re in, he feels like this is the most normal he and Mark have been in weeks. 

He’s putting off the inevitable-- he knows he needs to have a serious talk with Mark now that they’re sober. But he also needs to experience the easy way they pass their time together again.

A voice coming from Mark’s phone jolts them out of their idyllic reverie. 

“Hey, boss,” the cashier’s voice filters through Mark’s phone. Donghyuck immediately shushes Mark (who wasn’t talking) and Mark shushes him back.

“Another delivery? What time?”

A pause. They can’t hear the voice at the other end of the phone.

“ _Two thirty?_ You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me. Yeah, yeah, all right. I better get overtime pay for this though. Okay, I’ll be here.”

The voice goes quiet. 

“Who gets a delivery that late at night?” Donghyuck asks.

“Someone who’s getting a delivery that can’t happen in the daytime,” Mark says. 

“We’re in for a long night. No overtime pay for us though,” Donghyuck jokes. But they’re grinning at each other. Secretive, late night deliveries? It’s better than they could have hoped. 

The time passes quickly-- although they do take a break from sitting on the roof to pick up some late-night food. Donghyuck munches on his pizza happily as Mark complains about the way he had wiped his greasy fingers on his pants. Donghyuck doesn’t even bother defending himself, just wipes his fingers all over Mark’s jacket instead. 

“I’ll throw you off this roof,” Mark threatens, laughing. 

They quiet down as two o’clock rolls around. Eventually, a truck pulls up to the curb. They watch the driver jump out, and hold their breath as he opens the door to the back. But whatever the deliverables are, they’re stored in wooden boxes. They squint, eavesdrop, and do everything they can to figure out what could be inside as the cashier and driver move the boxes inside, but it’s impossible to tell what exactly those boxes could contain. 

“I think that’s the last one,” Donghyuck says as the driver lifts a box off the truck and heads into the store. 

“What do we do?” Mark says.

The driver and cashier disappear from the curb. Donghyuck straightens up and fumbles with his pockets, pulling out another bug.

“These double as trackers too, right? Get down there right now and place one of them on the truck,” Dongyuck hisses, shoving the tracker into Mark’s hands. 

“Wait what? Shit, okay,” Mark says. He tips off the side of the building, shooting out some web before he hits the ground. He uses the momentum to swing towards the truck, and lands on top of it with a loud sound. Donghyuck winces, hoping the sound wasn’t audible from inside the shop. Mark crouches to fix the bug in a hidden crevice, then jumps off the truck and makes his way back to the roof.

“Duck,” Donghyuck says the moment Mark lands next to him, and they fall onto their stomachs as they hear the door to the shop open. 

“What the fuck was that?” they hear a gruff voice ask.

“No clue,” the cashier responds. 

They don’t dare to move as the driver and cashier look around the area, and only get up when they hear the truck rumble away. A jingling of keys, and the cashier locks up for the night, out of sight a moment later. 

“I’ll text Chenle, and tell him to follow the location of the truck,” Mark says, already pulling out his phone. They stay on the roof while they call the others, reporting what went down. 

The victory of a solid lead, as well as a tension-free evening with Mark, and good pizza, has Donghyuck floating down the fire escape. It lasts all the way to the subway station, down the stairs, past the turnstile, and onto the subway cart. He feels the excitement bubbling between them at their success.

Unfortunately, it also causes his brain to short circuit, because when they’re at his stop, he blurts, “it’s already late. Do you wanna just crash at mine?” 

His brain immediately lights up in panic. He’s sure Mark will say no-- they’re basically equidistant, he wants to wake up in his own bed, he has somewhere to be early tomorrow morning. But none of those reasonable excuses come out of Mark’s mouth. Instead, red-eared and confused, he nods. 

Well, may as well commit to making mistakes tonight, Donghyuck thinks wildly. As soon as they’re off the train, he follows up his poorly formulated question. “We should probably talk. About things,” he says. 

“Totally,” Mark says, then falls silent. 

Okay, so he wants Donghyuck to do the talking. Not exactly what he had in mind. 

“So, the thing is, there’s obviously some sort of-- something, going on. Between us, I mean,” Donghyuck begins, with absolutely no idea where his own train of thought is going, “and I’ve also been a bit, um, tense recently. So-- just so you know what’s going on, for me, at least, in my head, um.” He stops and stares hard at the ground. Talking about your feelings is so hard. Nobody should ever do it. He gives himself a quick breather while they go through the subway turnstile and walk onto the familiar streets of his neighborhood. 

“Right, so, where was I,” Donghyuck continues, having no idea where he was, “the thing is. The thing is, I’ve already lost the most important people in my life.” He lets the last part out, all in one breath. Great, now they’ve stopped walking and Mark is looking at him with those big, sympathetic bambi eyes. 

“I’ve already done that. I just can’t do anything that could risk losing you. And I’m worried that if we change up what we have, that might happen,” Donghyuck finishes. 

There, done, Donghyuck thinks. No more talking about feelings for, minimum, the next decade. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like Mark is ready to let the conversation go. He’s playing with his ear, clearly thinking about what to say in response. 

“If you don’t feel ready to change what we have, that’s okay,” Mark says slowly, “we don’t have to change a thing. But, I want you to know that no matter what happens, you’ll always be my best friend.” 

Donghyuck nods, swallowing thickly. 

“This is gonna sound kinda stupid,” Mark surprises him by continuing, “but when I was worried about losing everything after getting my powers-- my career, my family, my friends, my life-- I didn’t even think about losing us. I just feel like there’s nothing in the world that could break that.

“I have a lot of faith in us. Maybe that’s too optimistic, or naive, but I’m a little tired of being reasonable,” Mark says with a sense of finality.

He’s so sincere, Donghyuck thinks as he parses through the expression on Mark’s face. Mark is so sincere in his belief, in his words, in his feelings. And Donghyuck loves him. 

Following that realization, of course, Mark’s phone rings. 

“Hello?” Mark picks up. 

_Listen, where are you? We’re coming to pick you up_ he hears Renjun’s voice faintly from Mark’s phone. 

“What? Why? What happened?” Mark says.

_That truck you tagged-- we think it’s led us directly to where the weapons are being manufactured. If it’s a factory filled with ZHE printers, we’ll finally have our answer_ Renjun says. 

Mark gives them their location and hangs up. “We’ll have our answer,” Donghyuck echoes Renjun’s words, disbelievingly. 

Mark breaks into a small smile. “I really, really hope so.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter totally ran away from me while i was writing it (there were so many intense conversations?? why???), and the party scene mostly just happened bc i miss my friends, BUT it got where it needed to go in the end!
> 
> i'm pretty sure there will be 2 more chapters left of this fic, and an epilogue! can't believe we're in the final stretch!!!
> 
> next chapter is where shit really hits the fan :) maybe some questions will be answered. spoiler: there will be more supers besides mark present. 
> 
> please look forward to it!


	7. luck runs out

“So where exactly are we going?” Mark says as everyone is jostled when Jaemin swerves to avoid a biker. 

“Sorry,” Jaemin says unapologetically. 

“It’s a warehouse in New Jersey. Looks like it's unaffiliated with any real estate agent, any company, any owner. So we think someone part of the underground must be running it,” Renjun explains. 

“ _Of course_ it’s in New Jersey,” Donghyuck says. 

Despite the late hour, the roads aren’t completely empty, but the traffic is light so they make it out of the city in record time. Donghyuck can feel Renjun trying not to fall asleep next to him, so he suggests that they stop by a gas station to get some shitty coffee to wake themselves up. He gets himself a redbull, which Mark eyes in alarm, but Jaemin tries to order something so truly frightening that Mark puts his foot down and gets the rest single shots of espresso. Jaemin somehow manages to pout and throw the espresso back at the same time, and then proceeds to rob Donghyuck of half his redbull. 

Everyone is wide awake, thankfully, but their energy is nervous and jittery as they get closer and closer to their destination. Jisung looks like he’s about to jump out of his skin and Chenle’s leg doesn’t stop shaking. It’s making Donghyuck even more nervous, and he really wants to hold Mark’s hand but his palms are sweaty, so he just keeps his hands to himself. 

They pull up around the back. The parking lot is daunting-- a wide expanse of pavement and a scattering of trucks, all similar to the one Donghyuck had seen pull up to the gun shop. The warehouse itself looks like it’s built for giants. They’re all used to scale, coming from the city, yet a skyscraper is but a plaything next to this building. 

“Holy shit,” Jeno says, pressed up against the window of the passenger seat. 

The sounds of the car doors opening feels almost too loud in the deserted space. Instead of heading directly inside, they gather together and come up with a game plan.

“We should scope out what’s there before deciding anything,” Renjun says.

“I’ll go,” Mark says, “I want to make sure no one else is in there before the rest of you go inside.” 

Donghyuck wants to protest, but Mark has a determined set to his shoulders, and the truth is that what he’s saying makes sense. So he nods along with the rest of them, and watches Mark take off at a sprint, shoot out some web, and swing himself up to a window. He struggles to open it for a moment, then slips through and out of sight.

“What do I do if there are ZHE printers in there?” Chenle says in a small voice, leaning against Jisung. 

Donghyuck wishes he had an answer. He thinks back to his conversation with Irene. She didn’t seem like a warm person, for sure, but he can’t imagine her executing such a huge operation to manufacture weapons like this. According to Chenle, all of ZHE’s business decisions come from Irene herself, and filter down the engineering ladder starting from his own father. He trusts his intuition when it comes to playing a judge of character, and his intuition tells him Irene wouldn’t be involved in this. 

“Remember, it’s not just about the printers. It’s also about the software-- if we can take a look at the code, we should be able to tell if this involves only ZHE, or someone else,” Renjun says. Chenle looks unconvinced. 

“Have you looked through the stuff you got from Irene’s computer yet?” Jeno asks.

Donghyuck nods and gestures for Chenle to explain.

“We didn’t find much. There were some weird correspondences with someone called Ten. Hyuck looked into him-- he’s a pretty extreme super rights activist. But we’re not sure it has anything to do with the weapons,” Chenle admits, playing with his backpack straps that house his laptop and the flash drive with Irene’s information.

Before they can continue the conversation, Mark comes tumbling out of the building. “We’re good. I got rid of two guards, hopefully there won’t be any more. It’s insane in there.”

Jisung breaks the locks of the back door and they shuffle through, Jaemin staying behind in his car in case he has to be ready to give them a quick getaway, and to act as a lookout in the small chance that anyone else pulls into the parking lot. Inside are racks on racks of computers, stacked on top of each other in rows like the bookshelves of a library. A library without end. It’s loud-- louder than Donghyuck would have expected. The computers are constantly buzzing, whispering angrily to each other, and an AC blasts cool air into the room to combat the heat of electricity working.

Most importantly, scattered across every single shelf they see, are ZHE printers. Exact replicas of the one Irene had revealed all those months ago in her presentation. The printers are the loudest of it all, constantly moving in their own designated area, moulding metal and plastic together layer by layer. It’s like they’re yelling at each other, forever in argument about whatever terror they’re making.

“Fuck,” Chenle says brokenly, “those are ours.” 

Donghyuck puts his hand on Chenle’s shoulder. He seems so small all of the sudden-- a kid facing the cacophony of machines his own father had invented. 

“Let’s take a look at the code,” Renjun says, his hand on Chenle’s other shoulder. 

“We have to destroy the printers too,” Mark says.

Renjun shakes his head. “There’s no point in destroying them if whoever runs this operation can just purchase more.” 

“Sure, that’s the next step. But right now we have to make sure that whatever the fuck these machines are making doesn’t leave this building.” 

“I agree with Mark,” Donghyuck jumps in. Mark sends him a tight-lipped smile. “These can fall into the wrong hands by tomorrow. We can’t let that happen either.”

“I think we should limit the amount of time we spend here,” Renjun protests.

“We’ll be quick. Jisung and I can destroy what we can, while you and Chenle download whatever code you need.” 

Renjun frowns, unconvinced, but the rest acquiesce as Mark delegates duties. Eventually, they split up, each with a goal in mind. Chenle takes out a flash drive and he and Renjun head off in one direction, talking about a cluster-switch and other things Donghyuck doesn’t understand. Donghyuck himself heads off with Jeno to explore the smaller corridors, leaving behind the wide open space filled with machines, and now, the sounds of crashing as Jisung and Mark use their powers to be as destructive as possible. 

Jeno is quiet at his side as they make their way deeper into the warehouse. He keeps track of their twists and turns, building a half-sketched out map of the space. The noises behind them fade to distant crashes and cries, the ever-present hum of machines underneath. He understands Jeno’s silence-- this isn’t a place for conversation. But he wants to fill it, to fill the air with familiar sounds and push out the uncanny buzzing. 

“Is it unlocked?” he asks as they stop in front of an ash-grey door. Jeno pushes and the door moves under his hands easily. Blue light pours out of the room. Donghyuck blinks at the sudden break of relative darkness his eyes had adapted to. 

It’s clear what the room is for. Monitors upon monitors show security footage. In one screen, Mark swings in and out of sight as he flits through racks of computers, using his web to catch the corners of each shelf and tip it on its side, until gravity takes control and it comes crashing to the ground. In another screen, he sees Renjun and Chenle huddled next to each other, Chenle’s laptop open. They’re clearly discussing whatever is on his computer, but Donghyuck can’t catch what they say. 

“Look at that.” A movement out of the corner of his eye catches his attention and he gestures at the monitor in question. It shows another guard, taking a cigarette break just outside the building, leaning against a closed door. A quick glance at the other screens confirms that it’s the only guard that Mark missed. 

“What do we do?” Jeno says. 

Donghyuck puts his head in his hands, thinking. He glances back up to watch the guard, then looks to the other screens that display the outside of the warehouse. It looks like there’s four entrances-- one in the parking lot they had used with the heavy lock Jisung had broken. One at the front, and two smaller ones on each side. The guard leans against the door of a side entrance. As soon as he comes back inside, their cover is blown.

“I could go and knock out the guard.” Donghyuck looks at Jeno in shock, the whirling of his mind stopped to a grinding halt at Jeno’s suggestion. 

“You don’t even know how to fight,” he protests.

“Not really, but I stand a better chance in a fight than you do.” Donghyuck scoffs and looks at Jeno’s thick arms, then at his own noodle-arms. Okay, so maybe Jeno goes to the gym more than him. A lot more. That doesn’t mean Jeno would be better in a fight. Necessarily.

“Look, let me do this. I’ll be taking the guard by surprise. Jisung and Mark have their work cut out for them tonight. I can do this.” 

Donghyuck urges his mind to think faster. To come up with a better solution, a better reason why Jeno can’t go. He knows that _it’s not safe_ won’t be taken seriously, and if Jeno thinks he can help the others, he’ll do whatever it takes to get it done.

“Fine. But make sure he doesn’t have the chance to call for any backup. I’ll tell you how to get to that side entrance from here,” Donghyuck says, hating the words that come out of his own mouth. Jeno makes to leave, but Donghyuck catches his hand before he can make it out the door.

“Be careful,” he says. 

“I will.” Jeno offers him a bright smile and squeezes his hand. Then Donghyuck is left alone in the weirdly-bright room, facing a wall of monitors. 

He tracks Jeno from one screen to another as each security camera he passes by picks up his movements. He calls Jeno’s phone as soon as Jeno turns into unfamiliar territory, and uses the information he can get from the cameras to lead Jeno through the labyrinth of the warehouse. He hopes his shoddy understanding of the space can guide Jeno in the right direction. 

“I see the door,” Jeno says, and Donghyuck breathes a sigh of relief. Now onto the next part-- the guard on the other side of the door. 

The call cuts off as soon as he both hears and sees Jeno swing the door open. It’s Jaemin calling the group chat, and interrupting his call with Jeno. He curses as he picks up Jaemin’s call, while keeping an eye on the screen that now shows Jeno throwing a painful looking punch at the guard. 

“Guys what do I do,” Jaemin’s urgent voice rings out from Donghyuck’s phone, “something just pulled into the parking lot. It looks like a truck.”

He shifts his attention from the screen with Jeno on it to the one that shows Mark, now standing still on top of a shelf of computers, phone in hand. “What if they’re here to pick up the supplies?”

“ _Fuck_ I think they noticed my car. They’re coming towards me.” 

Donghyuck’s heart drops. He thinks of Jaemin, all alone in his car, no reasonable explanation for his presence. “Jaemin, drive. Get out of there,” he says.

“I can’t leave you guys!”

“Get away! Make sure you lose them, and come back later to pick us up,” Mark says, no room for argument in his voice. The rumble of an engine, and he hears Jaemin start the car and drive away. Only a moment later, a camera picks up a figure passing through the same entrance their group had originally used, the lock Jisung had broken in hand. He swings his attention over to look at the front entrance-- the door stands open. It’s the side entrance then. His stomach drops as he finds Jeno on his knees, hand covering his face. 

“Jeno! Are you on the line?” he says. Jeno surprises him by answering.

“Yeah, my nose is bleeding a ton. I got the guard though.”

“The guard?” comes Mark’s voice.

Donghyuck ignores Mark’s question. “Mark, Jisung, Chenle, and Renjun. You have to get out of there. There’s someone coming in the same way we did, and through the front entrance as well. There’s a side-entrance Jeno and I found. Go through there.” 

“What’s happening?” Chenle says, panic lacing through his voice. 

“How will we even find that entrance? It’s wild in here, I’m already lost,” Mark says. 

Donghyuck sighs. Seven way phone calls are absolute chaos. All of this was a terrible idea. “Look, I’m in a security room. I can see all of you, and I can see the intruders who just came in. If you listen to me, I’ll lead you to Jeno’s exit and help you avoid the others.” 

It’s almost like a game, but with terrifying consequences. Donghyuck looks from one screen to another, too afraid to blink. He leads Jisung and Mark to Renjun and Chenle first, afraid of leaving the latter two without real protection. Then he instructs the group which turns to make, which corridors to avoid, making sure they stay as far away from the unknown intruders as possible.

He counts ten intruders in total. Compared to the guard Jeno had taken down, they’re all armed, they’re all pissed, and they’re frantically running through the building in search for whoever had caused such a level of destruction. As his four friends make their way closer to the exit, he notices one of the intruders heading towards the security room. 

Without moving his attention away from guiding his friends, he walks towards the door and locks it, then proceeds to drag over the furniture in the room to blockade the door. 

“What’s that noise?” Mark asks.

“Just moving some stuff around, don’t worry about it. Keep going straight,” Donghyuck says, keeping the panic out of his voice as he pushes a desk up against the door.

“I see the exit!” Chenle says, and Donghyuck watches his friends run towards the door, reunite with the outside air, embrace a bloody-faced Jeno. 

He’s searching for something he can use to defend himself with when he sees the doorknob shift, ever so slightly. The person on the other side of the door shouts and rattles the door. He freezes at the sudden, loud sound. The screen that shows live footage from right outside the room shows two men, one aiming a gun at the door.

“Hyuck, what was that?” Mark asks.

“They’re here,” Donghyuck says, breathless. 

The door bursts open and the call cuts off as Donghyuck dives away from the splintering wood. A man steps through with a gun, which would look normal except for the fact that the tip is on fire. The monitors installed on the wall shake at the sudden crash, then one by one blink off their lights and fall to the floor. It’s a mess of tumbling screens, flashing blue light, and cables that catch fire the moment the gun-waving intruder shoots at Donghyuck and misses, hitting the wall instead. Donghyuck narrowly avoids getting hit in the head with a monitor, but uses the chaos to slink through the cleared door. 

As soon as he’s out of the room, he’s racing down the corridor. He may not have Jeno’s biceps, but he’s always been pretty fast. He enters the general area of the warehouse, shouts echoing behind him and takes half a second to absorb the mass-scale destruction in front of him. Mark and Jisung sure had been productive. 

He runs through toppled racks of broken machines covered in spider web, towards the exit he had led his friends to only moments before. Something hot licks at his back, and he shrugs off his jacket as soon as he realizes that fire-gun guy had got him and lit his jacket on fire. 

“That’s my favorite leather jacket, you fucker,” Donghyuck yells behind him, heart in his throat as he swerves away from another line of flame. 

His luck runs out when he turns a corner and runs into a third intruder. This one holds what looks like a mixture of a machine gun and a fan. The guy grins, cocks his weapon, and Donghyuck is blown off his feet as a gust of wind hits him. He lands hard on his ass, wincing. The two men that had been chasing him catch up. All three men look down at him with jeers, lifting their various weapons and aiming directly at him. 

But before they can shoot, they’re suddenly covered in white, sticky spiderweb. 

“Good timing, idiot!” Donghyuck shouts gleefully, taking Mark’s hand as his best friend/almost-boyfriend drops down beside him and hauls him to his feet. 

“That was fucking terrifying!” he yells happily into Mark’s face, the adrenaline from the situation and the serotonin of seeing Mark’s face filling him with energy. Mark looks supremely displeased. 

“Let’s get out of here,” Mark says. They take off running again, only to be quickly flanked by three more guys. 

“Fuck, how many of them are there?” Mark asks.

“Ten,” Donghyuck says, panting, “well, now seven.” 

He glances over at Mark, who isn’t breaking a sweat despite their physical exertion. They’re constantly swerving, making themselves difficult targets for the people chasing them. But then someone intercepts them from the front, aiming a gun directly at Mark’s chest, and shoots. 

Mark moves inhumanely fast, jerking away the millisecond before the gun is shot. The movement has Mark crashing into him. Someone else shoots pale blue lasers at them from behind, and Mark shoves them both out of the way as he fails to react. 

He lets himself be moved, focused in disbelief on the space Mark had just been standing, before the first bullet had been shot by the man in front of them. That very bullet hovers, small and metal, exactly where Mark’s chest had been. It seems to pause, considering, then turns to face them, a red light blinking from it’s center. 

Mark’s attention is on the three men behind them. Donghyuck watches as the red light from the bullet beams onto Mark’s chest, directly over his heart. He moves without thinking-- throwing himself in front Mark, interrupting the beam of red light, jostling them both. Mark stumbles in surprise, and Donghyuck follows. But where Mark catches himself, he falls to the ground. 

He doesn’t feel the impact of his back falling on the hard concrete floor. He doesn’t hear Mark’s sharp scream. He doesn’t register the sound of a crash in the distance, towards the front of the building. 

It’s on his left side, he can tell. Where the pain begins. But he can’t tell where the pain ends-- it travels through his synapses, reaches his brain, and is sent back out, reaching what must be every nerve in his body. His senses are completely devoted to the pain, drowning everything else out. His brain doesn’t have the bandwidth to register the flash of red and yellow around him, the low voice calling his name in desperation. 

He struggles to think past the pain, to focus on the boy who has dropped to the ground before him, to focus on the way the boy presses his hands to his side, covering his hands in blood. But it’s like everything happening around him is actually happening in some distant place he can’t quite reach. What’s happening here and now is pain. 

An unfamiliar body slides up to his other side. It glitters, covered in a brilliant red. Like the red that seeps through Mark’s fingers at the very moment. 

“You need to get out of here. I’ll call an ambulance-- the police will show up any second now. If you want to avoid getting caught you need to move,” the red angel says.

“I won’t leave him.” This voice he recognizes. He slides his eyes away from the glittery red body on one side to the boy on his other side. Always by his side. 

“Mark,” he says. Saying the name makes him feel better. He blinks away, and despite the thrumming pain in his body, he’s able to focus a little bit. Taeyong, more beautiful than even in pictures, stares at him in shock. Mark, too, is speechless-- on his knees, covered in Donghyuck’s own blood, hands pressed against the bullet wound in his side. He takes a deep breath. The seconds tick by and so does the pain, dripping out of his system until he can actually think. Seulgi dances in and out of his peripheral vision, holding back the dangerous, armed men with bright flashes of sun-white light crackling at her fingertips. 

Mark’s hands are warm on his side. He covers them with his own, then carefully moves them away. Underneath his hands, under the ripped shreds of his shirt, under the still-warm blood, is an angry red scar. The vivid color fades, the skin turning shiny and pink in its stead. 

“What? Y-you--,” Mark tries to say something, but can’t quite get it out, his voice thick. Tears of relief spill down his cheeks. Donghyuck shifts to put his hands on Mark’s shoulders and pull him in. 

“Get it together and kiss me,” he demands. It comes out weaker than he intends, but the message is clear. 

Mark laughs a little hysterically, and kisses him. His lips are warm and soft against his, and he feels a faint glow spread through his entire body like honey, chasing out the last of the pain. He wraps his arms tight against Mark, until they’re chests are pressed close together. Mark cups his cheek, which is kind of gross because his hand is still all bloody, but Donghyuck doesn’t even care. He just pushes his hand into Mark’s hair and kisses him back with everything he has. 

The tunnel vision he has on Mark-- his lips, his hands-- expands as they break apart. The sounds of Seulgi fighting and the distant blare of sirens crash over their hazy bubble. He looks over at Taeyong, still at his other side and looking extremely uncomfortable. 

“You’re both in danger now. Get out of here before the police get here,” Taeyong says in a firm voice despite his deeply red face of embarrassment. 

Taeyong and Mark pull him to a standing position, which only stings a little. 

“I know your friends are outside. Go to them, and then find Ten,” Taeyong says, and gives them an address on Long Island. 

Taeyong leaps into Seulgi’s fight without saying goodbye. Donghyuck grabs Mark’s hand. “Let’s get out of here,” he says, and they run away from the fight, towards the side-exit where their friends are waiting. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay!!!! soooo hyuck has super healing powers! what a way to find out! there was a small hint in one of the previous chapters if anyone caught it. hehe.
> 
> next chapter we meet Ten!!!!!!!! Ten is. something else. 
> 
> i'm thinking that i'll actually have two more chapters, and include the epilogue in the last one,,,, we will see
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/_bluedesert_)
> 
> [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4aUdPUZQX6IeEvTWj0ckCP?si=HgMRRO_2T7m-1IqoVJwuPw)


	8. beach house

Jisung fully freaks the moment they stumble through the doorway, raising his glove while simultaneously cowering behind Chenle. 

“Dude! All that blood? What happened?” Jisung says once he realizes it’s just them. He and Chenle crowd them both, poking at Donghyuck’s tattered shirt. 

“I got shot!” Donghyuck says. 

“Hyuck has healing powers,” Mark says at the same time.

“I have such a headache right now,” Jeno groans into his hands. 

Renjun looks like he’s deciding between bursting into tears and murdering them both. “Enough chit chat, we need to go find Jaemin. He’s waiting for us a little farther away.”

The only reason Donghyuck makes it to Jaemin’s car is Mark’s hand that pulls him forward. He feels the adrenaline leak out of his system, replaced with an exhaustion that has his body shutting down. The cold sends shivers down his spine and he takes a moment to mourn his leather jacket as he watches puffs of air blow out of his mouth every time he exhales. He barely reacts when Jaemin jumps out of the driver's seat and manages to hug them all while sobbing. He pats Jaemin’s back with his free hand while trying his hardest not to fall asleep on the spot. 

Eventually Jaemin calms down enough to drive, and Mark apologetically relays Ten’s address that Taeyong had given them. Jaemin doesn’t mind the long drive ahead of him despite how tired he must be, and they all clamber into the car. It’s quiet, for once, as they drive down the empty roads. Donghyuck wants to stay awake to keep Jaemin company, but the moment he sits down and puts his head on Mark’s shoulder, he falls asleep. 

*******

It’s light out when he wakes up, neck stiff from its angled position while he had slept. He blinks away the bright spots of his vision and looks around. They’re driving slowly, the sun low in the sky, passing by suburban houses. In between each house he catches a glimpse of the beach, shifting sand and glistening water. On his other side, Mark is asleep with his mouth slightly open and their loosely tangled hands in his lap. 

“We’re almost there,” Jaemin says quietly from the front seat, making eye contact through the rear view mirror. 

“Can’t remember the last time I saw the beach,” Donghyuck says, just as quietly. He had spent a lot of summers at the beach as a kid, spending two months straight splashing around in the water with his parents. It feels strange to be at the beach when the air is so piercingly cold outside. 

They pull up into the driveway of a small house. Donghyuck and Jaemin shake the others awake and they blearily make it up to the front door. Mark rings the doorbell, and a small, elven-like man opens the door, sporting a messy bedhead and pajamas. 

“Sorry, I don’t take strays,” he says, and shuts the door. 

“Taeyong sent us!” Mark yells at the closed door while Donghyuck rings the doorbell repeatedly. 

The door opens again. “Tell Taeyong I’m not a babysitter,” Ten says, but opens it a bit wider to let them in. 

“You guys look horrible,” Ten says, eyeing their bloody, tattered, run down appearances. 

“We haven’t really slept,” Jaemin answers. Ten sighs. 

“Taeyong will _so_ pay for this. Okay, you three,” he points to Jeno, Mark, and Donghyuck, “go wash up. We’ll all sleep for a couple more hours. It’s way too early to do anything.” 

Jaemin sits down on the couch, then tips over and closes his eyes. “I’m out,” he says, nestling into the cushions. Jeno wraps Jaemin up in the throw blanket, then heads into the kitchen to wash his face in the sink and downs a full glass of water in one go. Donghyuck spots Chenle and Renjun by the doorway, talking in low and frantic voices.

“Everything okay?” Donghyuck asks.

“Oh, yeah, totally,” Chenle says. Donghyuck frowns at them, but then Mark is pulling him towards the hallway in search for a bathroom, so he decides to question them later. In the bathroom, Mark scrubs at his hands while Donghyuck just gives up and pulls off his shirt and jeans, throwing them into the bathtub. He ruins Ten’s towels as he wipes away the last of the dried blood sticking to his side, and dumps the soiled towels with his ruined clothes. 

Mark carefully avoids looking at him while he tries to get the dried blood out from under his fingernails. Ten knocks on the door and passes him a soft, clean shirt and some sweatpants. He doesn’t comment on the mess in the tub, just tells them there’s a guest bedroom upstairs they can use. Donghyuck leaves the bedroom feeling just a little bad about the ruined towels in his new comfortable clothes. 

In the living room a scowling Ten is making Jisung some hot chocolate. Jeno is passed out next to Jaemin on the couch, and Renjun and Chenle are nowhere to be found. 

“The skittish ones are out back. They said they have some sort of work to do on their computers. You two should go upstairs and sleep. We’ll talk more later when I’m actually awake,” Ten says and it sounds like a threat, only it’s not very effective with a happy Jisung sipping on a mug that says BUT FIRST, COFFEE next to him. 

Donghyuck drags his feet up the stairs. The first bedroom looks too personalized to be anyone but Ten’s, but the second room they walk into holds just a bed with plain white sheets. Donghyuck pulls down the shutters as Mark closes the door behind them. 

Pale light seeps between the shutter slats and dances on the walls. He walks up to Mark and smooths down the sleeves of his shirt, then runs his hands over his shoulders and down his chest. His hands stop over Mark’s heart and he thinks about the way the tiny bullet’s red eye had so easily found it. They way it had stopped in midair to locate its target, to take aim, to fly through the air and try to lodge itself under Mark’s warm skin. While he listens for a heartbeat, Mark’s hands slip under his shirt and run up his sides. His hand presses softly against the skin that had been just recently broken. He lifts Donghyuck’s shirt a bit to peer at the healed wound, tan skin and soft stomach the same as it had always been. Donghyuck pulls Mark in closer and presses his face into Mark’s neck, breathing deeply. 

“If you didn’t have those healing powers...” Mark’s whisper trails off into his shoulder. 

“Don’t think about that right now,” Donghyuck says after a moment, “let’s just sleep.”

“Yeah, okay,” Mark says. Donghyuck hums and leads them both towards the bed. They shift undercovers and Donghyuck can already feel the arms of sleep pulling him away. He lifts Mark’s hand up to his lips and gives it a soft kiss, then falls asleep to the familiar sound of Mark’s breathing. 

*******

“Look at them. Do you think they sorted their shit out yet?”

“They’re so cute! I love love.”

“Ewww, he’s drooling.”

“We should wake them up.” 

“How? Oh! let’s pour cold water on them!” 

“Absolutely not,” Donghyuck says, and opens his eyes. Jeno, Jaemin, and Jisung stare down at him in varying levels of amusement. 

“What’s going on?” he says and shrugs himself out of Mark’s arms. 

“Food! Ten is making us pancakes! Isn’t that so cool? That he can make pancakes,” Jisung says.

“I asked if he could make us banana pancakes but he says bananas weren’t allowed in the house,” Jaemin adds on.

Donghyuck rubs the sleep out of his eyes and shoos out the unwelcome guests. He shakes Mark awake, who is still passed out despite the chatter. Mark proceeds to stretch and make too much noise for how early it is (actually it’s almost afternoon but still, it’s early), so Donghyuck throws his pillow at him and tells him to meet him downstairs. 

In the kitchen, Ten is serving up pancakes and explaining to Jisung that it’s really not that impressive considering he used a mix. Jisung just watches in awe as Ten slathers the breakfast in butter and dunks it in maple syrup. Chenle and Renjun, he assumes, are still asleep.

“Eat up,” Ten passes Donghyuck a plate, “you too,” he says as Mark stumbles down just moments later. He seems to be in a much better mood and watches them eat with the same kind of fondness you would use to watch a rowdy litter of cats, or a small annoying dog. Once they’re done scarfing down their meal with enthusiasm, Ten calls them to attention. “So, introductions. How did you guys get here?” 

It’s a cacophony of sound as they all clamber to explain themselves, until Ten raises a hand to quiet them. “Only one person at a time. Who is the most responsible for this mess?” 

Mark clears his throat, and when no one moves to stop him, he launches into the story. Donghyuck watches with mounting suspicion as Ten’s expression turns from displeased, to downright terrified. By the time Mark gets to their whole warehouse shenanigans, Ten’s knuckles are white from his grip on his coffee mug. 

“And then, Hyuck got shot,” Mark says, “which, by the way, new rule. No more jumping in front of bullets. That goes for everyone.” 

Donghyuck doesn’t even protest, too busy watching Ten’s body language as he sinks lower in his chair. That’s when the front door swings open and Taeyong storms in. In his puffy jacket and beanie, he looks pretty tiny and unassuming. But the expression on his face is thunderous, and even Donghyuck can’t help but look away from his piercing gaze. 

“Taeyong!” Ten says, springing out of his chair. Taeyong ignores the greeting. 

“ _You_ ,” he says, and points to the group. “I’ve been tracking the situation from the start, don’t think I didn’t know exactly what you were planning. But I neverexpected you to get this far. What were you all thinking?” 

He doesn’t give them the chance to answer, and continues with his hands on his hips. “That was reckless, dangerous, and irresponsible. I don’t care if you guys have supers in your group-- you are not invincible, and you’re way out of your depth. My team has been working on this problem for months. This is _no_ place for a bunch of teenagers who want to play hero.” 

Mark stands up on the other side of the table, arms crossed. “This shouldn’t be a surprise, but none of us trust the people you work with. You think we were just going to sit back and let the government handle this?” 

“You were absolutely meant to let trained professionals handle the situation. We have the training, people, and connections you don’t. Putting yourselves at risk doesn’t help anyone!” 

“We found the manufacturing warehouse on our own without your shady connections.”

“And was it worth it? Was it worth risking your lives?” Taeyong says, and gestures towards Donghyuck, who avoids all eye contact and pretends not to exist. Attention is only fun when it’s not about him almost dying. Mark’s face falls, but before he can respond, Renjun and Chenle burst into the room.

“Even with government backing, you don’t know everything!” Chenle says. 

“It was him,” Renjun says, and points to Ten, “he wrote the software to create all those weapons.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ten snaps back.

“You’re a liar. We have it all here. The emails you exchanged with Irene? She built you a backdoor to create what you wanted using ZHE’s technology,” Chenle says.

“And I looked you up after Chenle showed me the emails. You’ve got quite a repertoire of impressive code-- and a heavy handed fingerprint in everything you write. There’s no question it was you that built the weapons those machines were printing,” Renjun adds. 

“That’s impossible,” Taeyong says in a weak voice, “we’ve already got a prime suspect for who is manufacturing those weapons. Why would Ten do such a thing?” 

Ten slowly backs away from the group. “I don’t have to listen to this! I don’t have to--” he turns and runs towards the back of the house. They clamber after him, Taeyong at the lead. Ten races out the door that opens up to the beach at the back of the house. 

Donghyuck, who has had quite enough of running in the last twenty-four hours, chases after him anyway with the rest of the group. They barrel onto the sand. The air is cold and whips around them relentlessly, urging them back inside. The ocean before them is just as untamed, reaching out in angry waves as if fighting with itself to get as close to them as possible. 

By the time they make it onto the beach, Taeyong is already standing in front of Ten, his arms crossed. Ten has tears falling down his cheeks but his shouts rival those of the wind’s. 

“You really think I would do that? Run an entire operation to manufacture those horrible weapons?”

“Of course not,” Taeyong says with round, pleading eyes, so different from his sharp tone of voice, “you aren’t manufacturing them. But did you create them?”

“I was desperate! When you were at that testing center, I didn’t know what they were doing with you. I couldn’t contact you. I didn’t even know if you were _alive_. I had to get you out. But what could I do with my puny human strength?”

Donghyuck grabs Chenle’s shoulder. “That’s why Irene gave Ten that backdoor to develop what he needed. She wanted him to break Seulgi out too,” he hisses.

“You were fighting a monster,” Taeyong says softly, “and in the process built one yourself.” 

“How could I have known the code would fall into the wrong hands?” Ten cries. 

As if the scene isn’t dramatic enough, a sharp white light falls to the ground, blinding Donghyuck momentarily. As the light dims, he sees Seulgi straighten up. 

“Irene wants to see you tomorrow at 9AM sharp at ZHE headquarters. All of you. I strongly suggest you arrive on time,” she says. 

“Damn, I guess I’m not making it to my 9AM calc class,” Renjun says under his breath. Mark elbows him in the ribs and shushes him.

Seulgi turns towards Taeyong and puts a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?” she asks. Taeyong gives a jerky nod in response. Seulgi turns towards Ten and eyes him with disdain. 

“Irene will never forgive herself for this, and for that I will never forgive you. You have put an incredible amount of people in danger by inventing these weapons. I hope you know that.”

“I know. You’re right. But I created them-- I can destroy them too. By the meeting tomorrow I’ll have a way to get rid of them,” Ten says. 

“I’d expect nothing less. Own up to this,” Seulgi says. Her eyes sweep through the rest of the group, resting on Donghyuck for a tenth of a second before moving on. 

“Until tomorrow then,” she says. Another bright flash that has Donghyuck rubbing at his eyes, and she’s gone. 

“You really think you can get rid of them?” Taeyong asks. 

“I have an idea-- I’ll have to run it by Irene. She won’t like it, but I think there’s a way we can stop anyone from using that code ever again.”

Taeyong sighs and wraps Ten up in a tight hug. “I hate you for this but I still love you. What does that make me?”

“An idiot,” Ten says, returning Taeyong’s hug.

“This is so beautiful,” Jaemin says tearfully.

The wind and the cold succeed in driving them back inside. It’s a bundle of awkwardness-- Mark clearly feels bad about yelling at Taeyong. Ten and Taeyong don’t seem to know what else to say to each other in front of their guests. Jisung dispairs that his new pancake-making role model turned out to be an evil genius. Slightly evil? Good intentioned evil genius. Renjun obviously wants to ask Ten a million questions about his coding abilities but doesn’t know how to approach the topic without appearing tactless. Donghyuck just wants to call his Grandma, and is also allergic to awkward situations that he doesn’t have the power to diffuse. 

Eventually, they find their rhythm. Taeyong declares that they are to stay at Ten’s another night and head to the meeting with Irene together, claiming that they need adult supervision. He sends Jaemin and Jeno to go pick up groceries and toiletries, and makes Chenle and Jisung help him do everyone’s laundry while Ten hands out his clothes to the others as their own clothes tumble around in the wash. 

The atmosphere is tense while stubbornly trying to find some semblance of normalcy. Ten and Taeyong disappear to have a hushed conversation upstairs while Donghyuck tries to figure out Ten’s TV. The mood rises significantly when they manage to get into Ten’s netflix account and everyone snuggles onto the couch and lets the events of the past day drip off their shoulders once again as they succumb to mindless television. 

The room smells of spices and sautéed vegetables when Donghyuck slips off the couch. He shakes his head slightly when Renjun catches his eye across the room. _Stay there_ , he mouths. He passes by Taeyong working in the kitchen, a curious Chenle trailing behind him and poking at some bell peppers. He manages to slip out the back door and makes his way to the water’s edge, which has calmed by now. The waves reach out to him playfully and tickle his toes. He rolls the bottoms of his sweatpants up and wades in slowly. The chill of the water bites at his legs. He just closes his eyes and lets it happen. 

“You should get out of the water. You’ll catch a cold,” a voice says behind him. He turns to find a tired looking Ten watching him. 

“I’ve never caught a cold in my life. Guess now I know why,” he responds wryly. 

“Fine. You’ll ruin my sweatpants, so come back here.” 

He spares one last glance at the water that circles his thighs, then waddles back to shore. Ten sits down on the sand and pats the spot next to him. 

“What I don’t want you to do is test the extent of your powers,” Ten says. 

“Why do you think I’ll do that?” 

“I grew up with a super as a best friend. Supers are obsessed with what they can do, don’t think I don’t know it,” Ten says. Donghyuck thinks of the weeks Mark had spent swinging around in the Brooklyn warehouse with Jisung. 

“Okay. I guess my power is hard to test without a whole lot of pain.”

“Yeah. Be careful with that.” 

They’re quiet for a while. The waves continue to crash. Back at the house, it sounds like the others are trying to set the table. Someone drops a whole bunch of silverware and the sound of the crash reaches them down by the shore, as well as the ensuing laughter.

“You understand why I did it, don’t you?” Ten asks.

“What do you mean?”

“You too would do anything to protect the people you love. You jumped in front of a bullet for Mark thinking it would kill you. Only thing is, you succeeded in your goal where I failed,” Ten twists to look back at the house. “Taeyong was never the same when he came back from that center. But what we did, we did for love.” 

Donghyuck stares out into the water. He hates it, but it’s true. He understands exactly what Ten is saying. And it scares him. Would he have done what Ten did? If Mark had been taken to a center, would he have gone to such an extreme to break him out? And if he had failed? If the consequences of his actions had been as disastrous as Ten’s? 

“I think what we did, we did out of fear as well as love,” Donghyuck says. He doesn't regret his choice back in New Jersey. Mark is alive and so is he, and it was worth it. But that’s with the hindsight that they both survived; what he did was worth it only considering the outcome. Mark’s pained shout that had rung out as Donghyuck had fallen to the ground after getting shot echoes in his mind. 

“Isn’t that what love is? The people you’re most afraid of losing?” Ten asks. 

“I don’t want my love to be fearful,” Donghyuck says. 

“I’ve loved Taeyong my whole life. And I’ve been afraid for him my whole life too.”

“We live in a world where when supers are involved, there’s a lot to be afraid of.” Donghyuck thinks of his parents, who are never very far away in his thoughts. He thinks of Mark. He even thinks of Taeyong and Seulgi, so powerful, so terrifying, so scared. 

“I’ve been involved in super rights activism for so long,” Ten says, “and I still don’t know if we can ever change the world. Change it for the better, so that supers and the people who care about them don’t have to be so afraid. Sometimes it feels like we can. But sometimes-- it feels impossible.” 

Donghyuck is saved from having to answer when Taeyong calls out to them from the doorway to the house. Dinner is ready. He stands up with Ten, who gives him a small smile, sharp eyes considering him thoughtfully. Donghyuck just jumps into the water and splashes some in Ten’s direction. 

“You’ll ruin my clothes!” Ten shrieks and runs away. Donghyuck chases after him, laughing. He joins the others at the table, Taeyong frowning at the way he drips water onto the floor, and slips into the seat next to Mark. He grabs Mark’s hand and happily squeezes it as Mark complains about how cold and wet it is. Taeyong passes them a steaming plate of food and Donghyuck lets go of Mark’s hands to fully enjoy the meal. Just for the night, he can pretend like there’s no world to change outside the house. He can eat until he’s full of food and laughter. He can convince the others to stay up and play games together. He can slip into bed with Mark again and kiss him like nothing exists but Mark’s soft lips and curious hands. Just for the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> p quick update bc i am so excited about this chapter!! 
> 
> one more chapter left!!! 0.0  
> a spoiler is there will be a surprise appearance and hyuck will have a field day about who it is. a wayv member will also make an appearance and jeno in particular is gonna b really excited about it!


	9. everest

“We’re going to be late,” Taeyong says, voice tight. 

“Don’t worry. We’ll get there eventually,” Ten says. 

Donghyuck shovels his breakfast into his mouth as fast as possible. Taeyong’s cooking really is divine. He had woken up to fluffy, delicious blueberry pancakes, and a very frazzled Taeyong as he tried to gather everyone’s belongings that had somehow spread far and wide throughout the house, despite the short stay. Donghyuck tries to think of all the jewelry he had with him upon entering the house. He’s pretty sure his necklaces and rings have found new homes under the bed or on the bathroom sink. He’ll have to check before they leave. 

Luckily, they get out of the house in one piece. Phones, keys, and wallets are all accounted for. Ten lends Donghyuck a jacket and gifts Jisung the rest of his pancake mix. They take two cars between the nine of them-- Jaemin’s and Ten’s-- and head off in the direction of Manhattan.

The car ride is quiet thanks to the early hour. Donghyuck abandons the idea of taking a nap and pulls out his phone, beginning his almost daily round of checking up on the news. Nothing from Moon Taeil, who has been a little quiet the past month. But an article in the business section of a well known news outlet immediately grabs his attention. It’s about the very company they are headed towards.

“Hold on,” he says as he scans over the article, “ZHE acquired PrintLabs? Their largest competitor? How is that possible?” 

Chenle and Renjun immediately perk up. 

“That’s impossible. It would be like Google acquiring Apple-- it would never happen,” Chenle says. 

“You mean ZHE owns PrintLabs now?” Renjun asks.

Jeno reaches for Donghyuck’s phone and scans the article in question. “It looks like it. Isn’t the timing kind of weird? I mean, with what we’ve had going on?”

“I thought Irene would be panicking and trying to patch things up after we found that warehouse, and what happened with Ten. Not eliminating her biggest competition,” Chenle adds on.

The conversation is forced to a stop when they pull up to the ZH Enterprises headquarters. The tall glass skyscraper looks exactly the same as it had all that time ago, when he and Mark had first entered in hopes of writing a good article on the new ZHE release. He catches Mark’s eye, who grins and rubs his neck. 

“Let’s stay away from spiders this time around,” he says.

The lobby, which had once been bustling with people, is empty except for a short, older man waiting by the elevator.

“Dad!” Chenle says, and runs over to greet his father. They hug, and Chenle’s father ruffles his son’s hair. 

“Heard you’ve gotten yourself in a bit of trouble,” he says with a smile.

A glance at Renjun shows that he is just as starstruck as Donghyuck expected him to be. It’s not everyday you meet a bona fide genius, one who’s inventions had changed the world of 3D printing and scalable manufacturing completely. They all greet him politely, but he waves away their stiffness with a hand.

“Yes, it’s nice to meet you all too. No need to be so formal-- we’re all in the same boat here. We’ve got to see what Irene has in store for us,” he says, and leads them to an elevator. 

It brings them up, up, up to the top floor. Usually Donghyuck isn’t a big fan of midtown Manhattan. He’s never understood how anyone could wear a boring suit five days a week. Skyscrapers have no personality-- all they do is take up space in the same sky that reflects against their monochrome glass windows. But the view, he has to admit, is incredible. They face downtown, a scattering of midtown high rises that dip down in lower Manhattan then rise back up like a wave in the Financial District. 

They have only a moment to appreciate the view when they are ushered into a meeting room with a long table and rolling office chairs. Irene is waiting at the head, Seulgi to her right and another woman Donghyuck doesn’t know on her left. The group files in, doing their best to stay quiet.

“Thank you all for coming,” Irene says once everyone settles down, “we have a lot to discuss today, so let me start with a brief introduction to those who may not know each other. This is Joy, our private detective we hired to track the printed weapons alongside Taeyong and Ten. Joy, this group of boys somehow solved part of the mystery for us. It’s thanks to them we found the manufacturing site. Which goes into my next point.”

Irene holds up a newspaper with the very article Donghyuck had found in the car. “The warehouse provided us with the final clues we needed to figure out who had hacked Ten’s code and started printing the weapons in mass scale. It seems to have been our competitor, PrintLabs.”

She puts down the paper and smiles at Joy, but there’s a scary glint in her eye. “Detective Joy uncovered that they had been planning on planting the weapons on the streets and framing ZHE for distributing them. Luckily not many had been actually sent out, and the ones that had been prepared for shipping were destroyed.” Her gaze moves and hovers over Mark and Jisung. 

“Capitalism really is evil,” Renjun murmurs under his breath. Mark elbows him in the ribs lightly, but Renjun looks unapologetic. Irene sends him an appraising look.

“We already contacted PrintLabs and have come to an agreement that would benefit us both. I had a significant amount of leverage with other information and can say that I am very optimistic about this acquisition.” 

Seulgi speaks up for the first time. “Taeyong and I have decided not to go to the government officials we work with in this investigation with the information, and instead allow the issue to be resolved between the two companied independently.” 

Irene nods and smiles at Seulgi with gratitude. Donghyuck takes a moment to chastise himself for ever thinking that Irene wasn’t a warm person. The smile she sends to Seulgi shines a light on the kindness in her eyes he hadn’t been able to see before.

“Thank you, Seulgi. I also must say that I owe you all an apology. As I’m sure you understand, when my dear friend, and now fiancé, was taken into a testing and training center I was desperate to get her out. So desperate that I gave Ten a dangerously free-reign on our powerful technology. Distributing weapons that can hurt innocent people in the city is not what ZHE stands for, it’s not what we built these printers for, and it’s not the outcome that I ever expected but it’s one I must accept. I had only thought about what I wanted at the time, and that miscalculation cost people greatly. I’m deeply sorry.”

It’s only stunned silence for a moment. Donghyuck shifts awkwardly in his seat and stares at Irene, stares at Ten. Truthfully, he’s surprised the powerful duo had even failed to break Taeyong and Seulgi out in the first place.

“Don’t forget that the real evil here are those testing and training centers,” Seulgi says, placing a soft hand over Irene’s. Irene moves her hand to interlock her fingers with Seulgi’s for a moment, as everyone around their table nods in support of Seugi’s comment. 

The testing and training centers are a symptom of the problem, Donghyuck thinks to himself. The problem is the militarization of supers, the government's fear of its own people that manifests into control and surveillance parading as patriotism, and the fact that most supers are forced into hiding. The problem is that supers are treated like soldiers and weapons and not people. 

“That leads me to what I would like to say next,” Irene says. She clears her throat, and speaks a little louder, “you two may come in now.”

Moon Taeil and another man he doesn’t recognize walk into the room. Donghyuck almost falls out of his chair in surprise and just barely stops the yell of excitement as Taeil and the other man stop by Irene and flank her sides. They smile at the group a little awkwardly. Taeil shines under the fluorescent lights, looking soft and huggable, and his eyes are wide as he takes in all the details of the scene before him.

“Mark, Mark, Mark do you see that?” Donghyuck hisses, pushing at Mark’s shoulder. Mark just laughs at him, which is mean, but he looks surprised too. Taeil catches the interaction and his smile widens a fraction more. Donghyuck swoons.

“Cute,” Mark tells him. Donghyuck lets his arms drop, face burning. He’s feeling way too many emotions at the moment and pulls himself together. In his peripheral vision, he doesn’t miss the way Jeno sits with his hands covering his mouth, eyes widened in surprise.

“That’s a world-famous lawyer. His name is Kun and he’s worked with the UN before and--” Jeno cuts himself off when Irene holds her hand up to curb the excited whispering.

“ZHE has a relatively well known humanitarian division. It’s now going to focus on funneling more resources into that division due to the new lawsuit,” she says.

“What lawsuit?” Ten asks.

“I’m going to be suing the government-- to abolish the testing centers and demilitarize supers. We expect the lawsuit to go to the supreme court,” Seulgi explains. 

“We will be supporting the team with this endeavor,” Taeil says.

“Ten, we would love it if you could join my team. Your expertise as a super activist would be invaluable,” Kun says, addressing a pale-faced Ten.

“No offense, but I don’t really trust you Mr. I-Uphold-The-Law,” Ten says coldly. 

Kun sends Ten a warm smile. “I study the law, I don’t uphold it. And it’s not about trust, it’s about a common goal. Trust can be built along the way.”

Ten jerks his eyes away from Kun’s smile and frowns at the table. He can’t seem to think of a clever response. Taeyong laughs a little and tries to hide it by turning it into a cough. 

“Fine,” Ten says, curt. 

“Thank you, Ten,” Kun says, earnest.

“I want to help,” Donghyuck cuts in. All eyes fall on him. “In any way I can. I want to help. I don’t want the constant threat of these centers to hang over our heads. Over anyone's head. And I-- I want to make it safe for my parents to come back.”

Irene smiles at him. “That’s why I wanted you all present for this meeting. Your talent and passion is evident from how you handled the situation with the ZHE weapons. Taeyong has only glowing praise for you all. I’d like to invite you to join in on the effort. Part-time, of course, considering you are students as well.”

Mark meets each of their eyes. Donghyuck nods at him, as do his other friends. “We would love to,” Mark tells Irene. 

“That’s great to hear.”

Then Irene’s eyes fall on Ten and they harden every so slightly. “The last item up for discussion-- Ten, I believe you have something for us.”

Ten sighs and rises from his chair. “Since ZHE allows automatic updates to their printers to happen for security reasons, I can write an update that will create a bug in my previous code.”

“You’ll need to make sure the bug doesn’t cause problems anywhere else. The manufacturing of medical supplies is essential, we can’t risk any large scale failures,” Irene says.

“I’ll need your help for that. We’ll need to test it out and make sure my code is the only affected part.”

“Okay, we’ll work to ensure that.”

“Also I’d like to invite someone else to join the team,” Ten looks away from Irene and nods at Renjun, “you showed me the great work you did with the others to track weapon sightings. You should join us.”

“That would be super cool,” Renjun says, voice uncharacteristically squeaky.

Irene claps her hands together. “Looks like everyone has a lot to do. Ten, Renjun, Mr. Zhong, please stay here with me to discuss what we’ll need for the update. The others can head home. I’ll be in contact with you all soon.”

Donghyuck shakily rises from the office chair. He passes by Renjun on his way out and pats his head, which earns him a prickly glare but hidden smile. He’s already dreaming about his own bed and his own shower when Taeyong swings up to his side.

“Hey, can we talk?” Taeyong murmurs.

Donghyuck waves off the worried looks of his friends and follows Taeyong away from the elevators and into a stairwell.

“Whats up?” he asks, leaning against the banister and watching Taeyong chew on his fingernails.

“I just wanted to say-- you guys shouldn’t feel pressure to join the team. I know you want to help, but you’ll be putting your own safety at risk. Especially you and Mark, if your identities are revealed,” Taeyong says carefully.

“I have to do it, Taeyong.” 

“I can’t stop you, I know. But I need to know that you’re in a place to handle all of this. That’s why I want to give you my therapist’s information-- his name is Doyoung, and he’s very good at what he does, on top of maintaining the utmost confidentiality. Your mental health is important too.”

Donghyuck takes a second to look into Taeyong’s wide, earnest eyes. “Okay, yeah, I’ll reach out to him. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” They take a moment to exchange phone numbers, and now Donghyuck has two new contacts in his phone: Taeyong and Doyoung. 

“Go run after your friends then. I’m sure they’re downstairs waiting for you.”

He sends Taeyong a grin and heads back towards the elevator, slipping his phone into his back pocket. As expected, the rest of his friends are downstairs, leaning against Jaemin’s car. They complain about his tardiness and wait for Donghyuck to bring up his conversation with Taeyong on his own. Donghyuck goes back to happily dreaming of his own bed and his own shower.

*******

This was a stupid idea. Really stupid. Since when is he this embarrassing? He must have lost brain cells somewhere along the way to Mark’s place. Maybe he should go get that checked out. Yeah, he should probably leave--

Mark opens the door. He’s got a comfortable sweater and some jeans on, as well as his round glasses. He takes one look at Donghyuck and immediately goes red.

Donghyuck extends his hands and shoves the flowers into Mark’s chest. “Don’t laugh at me. These were way overpriced.”

Holding onto the flowers with one hand, Mark uses his other hand to cover his face. But behind the blush he catches onto a small smile. It eases the embarrassment that colors his own cheeks.

“I can’t believe you got me flowers. Why? I don’t even think I have a vase,” Mark says, shoving his face into the bouquet. 

“I dunno. I saw them on the way here and thought they look pretty. It’s not my fault you’re barely a functioning adult.”

“You’re not much better,” Mark says and waves him in. He heads into the kitchen and starts rummaging the cupboards for something vase-like.

“Excuse me, I am a very high functioning adult, thank you very much. You wouldn’t even do laundry without me freshman year.”

“That’s only because it was boring without you.”

Donghyuck decides to let Mark have that one. It’s true-- Mark’s life would be incredibly boring without him. Mark eventually finds a glass bottle that could act as a vase if you squint, and the flowers sit comfortably on Mark and Jeno’s tiny table. 

“Let’s head out?” Mark asks. Donghyuck nods and Mark picks up his backpack by the door, slipping into sneakers and locking the door behind him as they leave. They are on their way to a coffee shop to get some much needed work done. Irene reminds them in every email and at every meeting not to fall behind on school because the workload she plans on giving them will ramp up any time now. 

They sit down at their favorite table in the back by the open window, drinks in hand. The lighting is warm and the space feels comfortable, filled with the murmurs of quiet conversations. They don’t pull out their laptops or their books. Donghyuck reaches out and places his hand in Mark’s, who instead of pulling away, holds it softly, running his thumb over Donghyuck’s knuckles. 

“Do you remember our conversation before? When I said I wasn’t sure if I was ready?” Donghyuck starts. Mark nods. 

Donghyuck takes a second to look out the window and gather his thoughts. The gray morning has been replaced by a bright afternoon, and sunlight streams onto their joint hands. “I realized that what I was afraid of has more to do with me, and the world we live in, than it has to do with us.”

“Anyway, what I’m saying is I want there to be an _us_. In case you didn’t figure that out already. You’re kind of thick-headed, you know,” he rushes to finish the thought. 

Mark smiles a little and scoots his chair so that it’s next to his own. “I think I did figure that one out, but thank you for saying it explicitly. Sometimes I need words too.”

“I know,” Donghyuck says, pressing close to Mark’s side. He appreciates this-- the physical gestures that Mark had so often nervously shrugged off in the past. But Mark is calm and collected now, putting his arm around Donghyuck, tilting his head and pressing a kiss to his lips once, twice, three times. 

They break apart slowly. Mark has a silly, dazed expression on his face, which Donghyuck would make fun of if he wasn’t sure that he had the same exact one on his own. He knows there is a lot of work to do, and they will get to it. Emails from Irene, from Kun, from Taeyong. Statements to make, research to do. An Everest-like mountain to struggle over. But Donghyuck feels a sense of optimism, an idealism he’d lost too early that he is going to fight to win back. They’ll get to work soon. But for just the moment, he thinks, he can enjoy the sunlight that falls over their table, Mark’s warm and steady presence at his side. 

*******

_2 MONTHS LATER_

Donghyuck almost drops the cake when Mark plunges down seemingly from thin air. He’s hanging upside down from the building, and has the stupid mask on that Irene had given him. Taeyong had been in charge of the design-- deep red with a black spray painted spider on his face. It’s meant to protect Mark’s identity while he swings around the city, which Mark likes to do a little too much. 

“You’re so lame,” Donghyuck says.

Mark chuckles behind his mask. “Whatever you say, Hyuck.” 

“I wanna see your face. I kinda like it, you know,” Donghyuck says pointedly. 

“Take off my mask then,” Mark teases. Donghyuck feels the butterflies in his stomach twirl around excitedly. Mark has gotten way too confident these past few weeks. Donghyuck is perpetually flustered, a feeling he isn’t used to. Time for payback.

He puts down the boxed cake and walks up to Mark’s upside down form, but instead of pulling the mask off completely, he stops as soon as Mark’s lips become visible. He uses one hand to cradle Mark’s head and leans in to deliver a good, hard kiss. Their lips move in tandem and Donghyuck makes sure to bite a little before pulling away.

He pulls off the mask completely and smirks at Mark’s pleased, yet flustered, expression. Mark pouts and executes a fancy flip, landing gracefully on his feet. He steals a quick peck in retaliation, then turns to the discarded cake.

“Is that it?” he asks.

“Yup. Jisung’s favorite. Went all the way uptown to find it,” Donghyuck says proudly. Mark opens the box and peers inside. 

“Cool. How was it with Taeil today?” 

“It was amazing! I never thought I’d get to interview such incredible people. Taeil is so good at what he does,” Donghyuck says dreamily. “How is your statement going?”

“It’s okay I think. Almost ready. Can you go over it with me one more time tonight?” Mark asks. 

“Yeah, of course,” Donghyuck says.

“Thanks.” Mark sends him a familiar, over-fond smile. “You know, you really inspire me sometimes.” 

“Sometimes? I am an icon of inspiration,” Donghyuck scoffs to hide his blush. Flustered yet again. Damn. Mark sees right through him. 

“Okay _icon of inspiration_. Let’s join the others. Even icons shouldn’t be late,” Mark says. They enter the doorway of his apartment building and trudge up the stairs. They pass by the door of Mark and Jeno’s apartment, and continue the trek until they hit the door that opens up to the roof. Donghyuck can’t walk up a single flight of stairs without getting out of breath. What’s the point of having a boyfriend who can swing from rooftop to rooftop if he can’t carry him up stairs? 

He’s in the process of informing Mark of this oversight when their friends catch sight of them. They’re met with immediate jeers and jokes that had been following them for weeks. Jaemin pulls Donghyuck down to his side and Mark places himself between Renjun and Chenle. Donghyuck pouts but doesn’t complain. He’s been banned for the time being of attaching himself to Mark because apparently he can’t “keep his hands to himself” whatever that means. His friends are honestly just jealous. 

“The cake looks so good. I wanna eat. When does Jisung get here?” Jaemin says to his side, taking the cake out of it’s box. 

“Do you think this wine will taste good with the cake?” Chenle says, eyeing the bottle of rosé in his hands. Mark stops him from “taste testing for science”. 

“Wine is good. Cake is good. How could it taste bad?” Renjun grumbles, setting out plates and napkins for everyone. 

“Did no one bring a speaker?” Donghyuck complains. 

They erupt into a flurry of accusations over whose job it was to bring a speaker. Renjun accuses Donghyuck. Jeno surprises everyone and accuses Jaemin, who is affronted by the betrayal. Chenle offers to run down and get it (no one listens to him). It’s only when Renjun catches onto Mark’s silence that he swings his accusatory finger to Mark.

“It was you!” 

“I was going down to get it just now. But then I ran into Hyuck and, um, got distracted,” Mark trails off. Donghyuck laughs hysterically while the rest erupt into shrieks. 

“Bros before hoes dude!” Jeno says. 

“You shouldn’t say that,” Renjuns scolds. 

“Guys, I can just go and get the speaker myself,” Chenle says again. 

The pandemonium is only silenced by the opening of the rooftop door. Jisung stumbles in.

“You guys sent me on a scavenger hunt throughout the entire city, just to find out I was meant to meet you here?” Jisung starts off at a screech. Then his eyes widen as he takes in the cake, the wine, the old sheet that was converted to a picnic blanket. 

“This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me,” he wails. The group jumps up to hug him. Donghyuck reaches over a cooing Jaemin and a sniffling Chenle to pinch Jisung’s cheeks. He can see the exhaustion and stress that has enveloped them for a while now. But he can feel the energy and the affection too. He laughs as Mark tries and fails to quiet them down. No one can keep them quiet, not really. Seven voices together are pretty loud. Pretty soon, they’ll be joined by thousands more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FIN. AHHH! 
> 
> so, most importantly!!! i am definitely still interested in playing around with this world and its characters. i don't have a sequel or anything like that planned, but i would be down to write some one-shots/shorter things. im def down to write some more markhyuck. there's a lot to explore in their past and in their future. ten and taeyong's friendship(?) would be cool too. i could throw some tenkun in there. maybe taeyong can date his therapist? irene/seulgi bc i love women? i can't promise anything but i think it could be fun! 
> 
> if there's anything you'd be interested in, you can either mention it in a comment, reach out to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/_bluedesert_), or on my newly created [cc](https://curiouscat.me/_bluedesert_) (but please be nice lol)
> 
> big thank you to everyone who read, kudo'd (?), and commented!!!!! i had SO much fun writing this. like i said, it's my first NCT fic, and it's also my first time writing anything this long or with actual Plot and Worldbuilding and Character Development! it was a project i wanted to challenge myself to see all the way through! so this was rly my baby!!


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